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• Democracy Derailed in Honduras | The Nation

  Greg Grandin on the need for the US to avoid the "Haiti Option" which linked US support for Aristide to the forced implementation of IMF and WB policies in Haiti. Support for Zelaya to return him to office should be provided without conditions. "It seems like what the United States might be angling for in Honduras could be the "Haiti Option." In 1994 Bill Clinton worked to restore Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he was deposed in a coup, but only on the condition that Aristide would support IMF and World Bank policies. The result was a disaster, leading to deepening poverty, escalating polarization and, in 2004, a second coup against Aristide, this one fully backed by the Bush White House."

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• The Dublin Consensus

  Sli Eile of Progressive Economy responds to Sarah Carey’s article today in the Irish Times and talks about the dominance of the Dublin Consensus (following the notion of the Washington Consensus). Carey says the debate is over - ICTU should choose ‘patriotism and pragmatism’, sell ’spending cuts and tax increases’ to their members and get it over with. Sli Eile says that we have to move away from marginal issues - such as Carey’s focus on job subsidies - and confront the real issues:

  1. Domestic fiscal stimulus versus profound fiscal deflation for 2009-2012/13
  2. Skills, innovation and growing the indigenous economy on world markets versus business as usual depending on FDI and a relatively protected and cosseted non-traded sector (as in price controls, costs and rigid work practices in the case of the public and civil service)
  3. Corporate governance change versus cosmetic name change
  4. Finding another way of dealing with banking rather than bleeding the whole country with a blanket cheque to recapitalise the failed (with the bail-out of Anglo-Irish ultimately costing more than an entire year’s education budget)

  This is where the real debate needs to be reclaimed and the Dublin Consensus challenged.”

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• Honduras Photoshow

  Some photos of how the new Honduras government likes to protect its constitution against a 'survey'.

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• Barack Obama’s Recent 55 Minute Speech to the American Medical Association

  As mentioned in Gerry Burke’s piece published today on Irish Left Review.

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• Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

  The explosive trend in American medical costs seems to have occurred here in an especially intense form. Our country’s health care is by far the most expensive in the world. In Washington, the aim of health-care reform is not just to extend medical coverage to everybody but also to bring costs under control. Spending on doctors, hospitals, drugs, and the like now consumes more than one of every six dollars we earn.

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• The Real News | The Military Coup in Honduras

  See also Hugh Green on the Leader of opposition, President of the Congress (and now interim President) Roberto Micheletti’s resistance to sign the Bolivarian Alliance of The Americas (ALBA) treaty which would strengthen economic links with ’socialist’ countries in Latin America. The IMF has problems with this because of the “economic repercussions which the aforementioned incorporation will have and its consequences with its old partner the United States”.

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• PROMISSORY NOTES: From Crises to Commons

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• Honduras Coup: Check out the false resignation letter

  Incakolanews has an image of the ‘resignation’ letter of Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president of Honduras. It’s dated the 25th of June. As they say themselves: “There’s more chance that Michael Jackson signed this piece of BS than Manuel Zelaya”.

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• Why mass protest in Iran is true politics worth supporting

  Morad Farhadpour and Omid Mehrgan, translators and philosophers based in Tehran on why mass protest in Iran is true politics worth supporting:

  “June 2009 Election was a decisive opportunity for this people to declare itself, in the figure of Mousavi, who from the beginning insisted on people’s dignity as a true political right. But why him? Why not, say, Karroubi, the other reformist candidate? Has Mousvai, now the leader of the mass movement, appeared on the scene in a purely contingent way? Has he by mere chance, by force of circumstances, as it were, become the leading figure, the reform-freedom-democracy incarnate? The answer is positively negative. To elucidate this, we have to draw attention to the tradition from which he has emerged and to which he has repeatedly referred during his electoral campaign. As we said before, this tradition is rooted in 1979 Revolution and has been revived in the 2th of Khordad Movement — whereas, Karroubi’s ‘politics’ was based on a subjectless process in which different identity groups would present their demands to the almighty state and act as its passive, divided, depoliticized supporters.”

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• Government on the Ropes after Election Defeat | The Socialist Party Analysis

  Kevin McLoughlin of the Socialist Party provides an analysis of the party’s performance in the local and European elections on Indymedia.

  “It wasn’t that 50,510 voters fully endorsed socialism but, there is no doubt that everyone who voted for Joe, knew well that they were voting for a socialist. In the exit poll, when asked why they had voted for Joe Higgins, 48% said because of his personality/personal qualities; 29% because of his policies and 18% because he was the Socialist Party candidate. The poll also indicated that, of those made redundant over the last six months who voted, 32.4% voted for Joe Higgins.”

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