If you like Charter Schools, you're gonna love Charter Cities.

[Octafish]

I kid you not. The Big Money boys are starting them up as I paste with permission:

THE WORLD'S FIRST CHARTER CITIES IN HONDURAS: From neo-liberalism to neo-colonialism

Friday, September 14, 2012
Posted by Rights Action Team

The Honduran National Congress is currently reviewing the law to geographically define the first four "Charter Cities" in the world, three sites along the Caribbean coast in Garifuna afro-indigenous territory, Trujillo, the Valle de Cuyamel and the Sico-Paulaya Valley, which includes Miskitu indigenous territory. One is proposed in the Gulf of Fonseca which would include the community of Sacate Grande.

The Charter Cities initiative cedes city-sized sections of Honduras to corporations or foreign governments to govern autonomously, indefinitely. Investors can make their own laws, build their own police force, administer services and regulate their economy.

On September 4, Michael Strong, representing the MKG Group, signed a memorandum of understanding in the Honduran Congress to establish the world's first Charter City, a contract is surrounded by confusion and secrecy. Strong provided no information about the MKG Group, which has no web site or any other readily available public information.

MICHAEL STRONG, PARTI FRIEDMAN AND PETER THIEL MEET PAUL ROMER

In blogs and international forums over the past year, a group of free market Libertarians have made clear their intention to channel their ideological vision into the blueprint outlined by New York University economist Paul Romer.

Strong founded the Free Cities Institute [FCI] to promote charter cities, which in July 2011 co-sponsored with Guatemala's Francisco Marroquin University [UFM] a forum in the Honduran Island of Roatan. Though the FCI web site has apparently been taken down, the UFM page on the event featured articles by Patri Friedman, grandson of Milton Friedman. Friedman and Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, founded the Seasteading Institute in 2008 and Michael Strong is on its Board of Directors.

The Seasteading Institute is dedicated to promoting communities in the sea, free of states. Friedman late last year resigned as the Seasteading CEO to head the Future Cities Development Corporation, dedicated to developing a Charter City in Honduras.

SAVING THE POOR FROM THEMSELVES

Paul Romer explains that his plan is about starting over, with a clean slate with good laws. The Wall Street Journal's diehard neoliberal Mary O'Grady noted "What advocate of free markets hasn't, at one time or another, fantasized about running away to a desert island to start a country where economic liberty would be the law of the land?"

The problem is there are no clean slates. Honduras does not have untouched expanses of territory awaiting homesteaders to lay claim. Trujillo, the site most often mentioned for the first Charter City, has long belonged to afro-indigenous Garifuna communities and campesino farmers, and suffers from a long history of attempted usurpation, from the Republic of Poyas to the United Fruit Company.

US filibuster William Walker, after being chased out of Nicaragua, tried to take his thwarted plan to create a US slave state to Roatan, but was captured and executed in Trujillo in 1860.

Romer argues it is necessary to 'start from scratch,' in order to create economic opportunities for the impoverished people of the world. Poverty, he argues, could be ended if impoverished people, and nations, could only let go of the systems of bad laws and social mores that bind them to poverty.

Clearly wealth and poverty are about governance, who makes the rules, who they favor, who must abide by the rules and who is doesn't have to, who benefits, who doesn't.

UNLOCKING THE WEALTH IN LAND, ARMED ROBBERY AND MIGUEL FACUSSE

Trujillo's Garifuna and campesino communities have, over the past 20 years, been preyed upon by violence unleashed as a consequence of a set of rules inspired by one of Michael Strong's ideological cohorts, and co-author of a book promoting 'entrepreneurial capitalism,' Hernando de Soto.

In the heart of the region apparently now proposed as the future home of a Charter City, on August 27 the Garifuna community of Vallecito awaited government officials, who never came, to measure a small portion their land, to which they hold full legal title. The huge majority of their lands has been taken over by businessmen and drug traffickers, mostly, they explain, through violence and fraud. The measurement would be a first step in recovering possession of the land.

The Vallecito community was surrounded by armed bands firing off weapons through the night. A group of heavily armed paramilitaries snuck into the middle of a Garifuna drumming circle, made their presence known and left, the death threat established with clarity. The armed bands have continued to circle the community.

The scene was typical of the region since the 1992 Land Modernization Law unleashed paramilitaries against agrarian communities. The law altered the Agrarian Reform Law from the 1960s, which prohibited the resale of land acquired through the agrarian reform program. Businessmen and drug traffickers, with deep ties to the military intelligence death squads infamous for political killings in the 1980s, used armed bands and other forms of coercion to force Garifuna and campesino communities to sell their land, illegally, and used their political clout to maintain control of the land despite the illegal title transfers.

'Unlocking the wealth' held in land through the promotion of land markets was a principal of the "Washington Consensus" ideologically promulgated by Hernando de Soto. The Washington Consensus also involved shifting access to financing from the public to the private sector. The single largest benefactor in Honduras of this shift in the early 1990s was clearly African palm oil businessman Miguel Facusse, who not only used fraud and violence to gain control of land in the Aguan region that Trujillo forms part of, but used political connections to generate even more wealth through access to loans from public entities including the WB (World Bank) and IDB (Interamerican Development Bank).

MAKING THE RULES AND TWO MILITARY COUPS

The written and unwritten rules of Honduras have been set into place over generations by the constant use of force, both violence and other forms of coercion, by the wealthy sectors in Honduras, and by the wealthy nations and corporations of the world.

A recent example is the June 2009 military coup that set the political stage for the Constitutional Amendment that provides the framework for Charter Cities. The on-going usurpation of Garifuna lands in Vallecito is another expression.

The Charter Cities proposal was linked to a government turnover in Madagascar in 2009, this one the consequence of massive protests. Paul Romer first traveled to Madagascar in July 2008, to propose a Charter City, but the deal was left in the air. The same month, the South Korean transnational Daewoo announced it struck a deal to cultivate 1.3 million hectares of farmland for free, over 99 years. In early December 2008, Daewoo announced the deal was uncertain as a contract had not been signed. In late December 2008, Paul Romer traveled to Madagascar and met with President Marc Ravalomanana, who soon announced the intention of creating Charter Cities in Madagascar.

By the end of January 2009, citizens of Madagascar - outraged by these proposals - took to the streets, the military took control and President Ravalomanana left the county. Within a few months both proposals had been scrapped. Though not explicitly linked the Daewoo deal and Charter Cities, the timing leads to the conclusion they were related.

CORPORATE WELFARE FOR THE CHARTER CITIES

Daewoo is a subsidiary of the South Korean transnational POSCO. Originally a steel corporation, it is today a diversified conglomerate which owns corporations involved in everything from machinery and automobile production to food and biofuel production, mining, textiles, etc. In May 2011, POSCO signed a contract with the Honduran government to carry out initial studies for infrastructure development for the Model Cities.

In March 2011, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo attended a ceremony to place the first brick in a cruise ship dock in Trujillo, there he announced that the IDB would finance studies for the construction of an airport and port for a Charter City.

The cruise ship dock is a venture of Life Vision Properties, a Canadian investment fund (with a Cayman Island shell corporation) promoted by Canada's "Porn King" Randy Jorgenson and Porfirio Lobo's brother, Ramon Lobo. The cruise ship dock and mega-tourism project associated with it are annihilating the Garifuna community of Rio Negro, which has literally been bulldozed away, and the families were resettled in a "model community" outside the neighboring Garifuna community of Cristales.

A clear violation of international law regarding indigenous territory and the obligation to gain consent for development projects carried out on indigenous land, community members who opposed displacement have been threatened, particularly Garifuna journalists with the community radio. In December 2011, families from Rio Negro presented a complaint against Randy Jorgenson in the Honduran justice system.

DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTARIANISM INCOMPATIBLE, VOTING WITH YOUR FEET

The proximity of coups and international law violations to the Charter Cities initiative probably does not faze the Libertarian cabal promoting them. They have been clear, they have their differences with democracy, and the plans for governance of model cities reflect this.

A recurring theme in interviews with Romer is the concept of 'voting with your feet,' as described in a July 2010 Atlantic Magazine article. "Rather than getting a vote at the ballot box, Romer is saying, the residents of a charter city would have to vote with their feet. Their leaders would be accountable - but only to the rich voters in the country that appointed them."

The article continues, "The real test for Romer's attitude toward democracy is not whether it conforms to Western ideals, but whether it appeals to the poor people whom Western aid agencies claim to be serving. And on this score, the answer is clear. In fact, you could say Romer's assertion - that voting with your feet can be a palatable alternative to casting a ballot - already has 214 million adherents, for that is the number of people who have chosen to leave their home countries and settle as migrants in places where they have no political vote."

In other words, people's political participation in the Model Cities would be limited to deciding whether or not they would live there, an option that Atlantic Magazine explains 214 million people have "chosen" in deciding to live without a vote outside of their home nation.

This argument, that the hundreds of millions of immigrants who do not benefit from the rights of citizenship where they live is somehow an option they freely "choose" ignores a multitude of elements of coercion, repression, war, poverty, discrimination, etcetera, involved in many such decisions.

Patri Friedman wrote, in an April 6, 2009, Cato Institute blog post, "Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state." An appropriate precedent to his grandson's declared belief in the incompatibility of democracy and Libertarian ideals, Milton Friedman was close to Chilean dictator - and darling of free marketers - General Augusto Pinochet.

Peter Thiel wrote, just a few days later, on April 13, 2009, also in the Libertarian Cato Institute's blog, "Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He later recanted the statement; it is, after all, an impetuous statement from one of the world's most wealthy and powerful men.

AN 'INTELLIGENCE' STATE

Billionaire Peter Thiel was a founder of PayPal and the financier that made Facebook possible, retaining 10% of its ownership. He then went on to create Palantir in 2004 with joint start-up capital from the CIA-owned technology venture capital firm In-Q-Tel.

Palantir, named for the all-seeing stone in "Lord of the Rings," is a technology company that - according to a November 22, 2011, Businessweek article - is "tying together surveillance video outside a drugstore with credit-card transactions, cell-phone call records, e-mails, airplane travel records, and Web search information," to generate dossiers on people of interest, and is used by the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security among many other government and private sector clients.

As if the concept of the ultimate 'big brother' technology controlled by a man who explained that democracy is not in line with his ideals is not disturbing enough, Thiel is also on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Meetings, annual meetings which since 1954 have brought together leading businessmen, politicians, academics, and journalists from Western European nations, Canada and the US for off the record discussions about the direction of the world.

HONDURANS CHALLENGE THE MODEL CITIES CONTRACT

As the Garifuna communities, whose territory is slotted to house the worlds' first Charter City, vocally oppose the project, in Honduras' capital of Tegucigalpa, there was a strong reaction. Xiomara Castro, Honduran presidential candidate for the new LIBRE party, leading the race in some polls, issued a statement: "The law imposed is inconsistent with the concept of sovereignty, independence in equal opportunities for domestic and foreign investment. Those who initiate projects under this unconstitutional 'model cities' scheme are risking the loss of their investment... We invite the President of the National Congress and the National Party, based on Article 5 of the Constitution which regulates the Plebiscite and Referendum, to submit the Law of "Model Cities" to a referendum and let it be the people who decide."

Since the September 4 contract was signed by Michael Strong a series of complaints have been presented to the Supreme Court arguing the contract is unconstitutional. On September 12 lawyers presented complaints of treason against the congressional representatives who voted for the Constitutional Amendment and Statute that established the Charter Cities.

On February 15, 2011, the Constitutional Reform that established the framework for Charter Cities in Honduras, dubbed Special Development Regions [RED], was published into law, and on August 23, 2011 the statutes that further defined the creation and administration of the REDs was published.

According to Jari Dixon Herrera, Oscar Humberto Cruz and four other lawyers representing the Honduran Jurists Association, the Charter Cities laws are unconstitutional. They presented a legal challenge to that effect on October 18, 2011 arguing the amendment and statute were unconstitutional. The lawyers argue that permitting foreign investors to enjoy territorial and administrative autonomy implies a separation of a section of the national territory, and violates the sovereignty of the nation since the people of Honduras would no longer exercise authority over the area circumscribed as a RED. They also argue that the initiative violates fundamental rights of Honduran citizens recognized by the Honduran constitution and international treaties, including the right to equality, no expatriation, free circulation, the public tutelage of labor relations and the right to not be obligated to change residence.

On January 12, 2012 the Honduran Attorney General's office gave its opinion to the Supreme Court, that the reform and statutes do violate the constitution and should be overruled.

THE TRANSPARENCY COMMISSION

Five 'Pro Tempore' Transparency Commission members were charged by acting Honduran President Porfirio Lobo with overseeing the creation of the initial Charter Cities on December 6, 2012. However, in an interview in The Guardian, Romer said they were not notified beforehand that the September 4 contract would be signed. Implying he was concerned about the constitutional challenge, Romer explained he and the other commissioners had backed away from the Commission. In a September 7 letter, the Commissioners told Lobo they were "relieving him of the obligation" to formalize the commission by publishing into law the December 6, 2011 presidential decree that established the Commission.

The Commission is chaired by Paul Romer, Economics Professor at NYU, and includes Harry Strachan, Nancy Birdsall, George Akerlof and Ong Boon Hwee. They said they were still fully supportive of the proposal and willing to come back to the Commission as soon as soon as "the obstacles to the full establishment of the institutional framework of the RED have been resolved."

George Akerlof created the field of 'identity economics', exploring how social psychology affects economics, arguing that social norms linked to a person's identity impact their behavior within an economy, a vision shared by Romer, which in effect presents poverty as a cultural problem. The key to prosperity is eliminating cultures or cultural norms that generate poverty.

Nancy Birdsall was an Executive Vice President of the IDB when the IDB aggressively promoted Plan Puebla Panama. She is also a former Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and currently is president of the Center for Global Development. She advocates for economic reforms within the framework of the 'Washington Consensus' a set of neoliberal economic policies.

Ong Boon Hwee, Brigadier General of the Singapore Army who specialized in crisis management, currently directs two different consulting firms: Beyond Horizon Consulting (BHC), which describes its activities as people development, strategic thinking and change management, and Temasek Management Services (TMS). He also owns Stratton Management Company (SMC) which manages his joint investments in a range of sectors, particularly renewable energy, and is the former CEO of Singapore Power (SP).

While Romer, Birdsall and Akerloff provide the Commission with a theoretical framework, Birdsall and Hwee undoubtedly also provide important connections to financial backers. Hwee's inclusion in the Commission gives an important insight into the vision for the Honduras RED. He has been a top ranking military officer in Singpore, widely described as an authoritarian police state.

Harry Strachan appears to be key to on the ground implementation. Over the past two decades, he has networked Central American oligarchs, constructing financial and political alliances, pushing Central American wealth management from family centered corporations into shared investment funds, and building up networks of strategic political influence.

A partner in the Boston financial advising firm Bain & Company, Harry Strachan started Central America's leading financial management firm, coordinating regional mergers and acquisitions. He was Rector of the leading Central American Business school INCAE. When he first moved to Costa Rica in 1992 he dedicated much of his time to promoting the Central America Free Trade Initiative [CAFTA] that unified Central America's mega-wealthy through a platform he helped to found, the US-AID-funded Caribbean Central America Alliance (C-CAA) which coordinated forums where Strachan presented at panel discussions with former Honduran president Ricardo Maduro. After CAFTA was ratified across Central America, in 2007 he founded the Central America Leadership Initiative, a networking platform.

HARRY STRACHAN -MITT ROMNEY'S SALVADORAN DEATH SQUAD CONNECTION

In 1984, it was Strachan that connected Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with El Salvadoran investors at same time they financed the ARENA party with its associated death squads. According to Huffington Post, the Salvadoran group provided a significant 40% of the start-up capital for a spin-off of Bain & Company, Bain Capital, launched in 1985 by Mitt Romney. The Salvadorans have been loyal patrons of Bain capital ever since.

Romney explains that his Salvadoran customers not only facilitated his massive fortune but he also learned from them: "These friends didn't just help me; they taught me." Romney describes as friends his initial investors, including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas families who "were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador."

THE CENTRAL AMERICA MATCHMAKER - TRANSNATIONAL MERGERS, MARRIAGES, OLIGARCHS AND POLITICIANS

In 1992, Strachan moved to his birthplace, Costa Rica, where he had grown up in a Presbyterian missionary family. In Costa Rica, Strachan founded Mesoamerica Investments, which INCAE's website describes as "the leading regional mergers and acquisitions firm with strategic consulting and private equity branches," while the firm's own website emphasizes its ongoing relationship to Bain Capital and Bain & Company.

Central American wealth and political power is coordinated through family dynasties, powerful oligarch clans that control different sectors of the economy in different countries - as Strachan describes them, family businesses. The trend over the past two decade has been to diversify, moving beyond financial alliances through marriages, to the creation of regional capital investment funds and corporations jointly owned by many families.

The Poma clan, whose patriarch Ricardo Poma is described by Harry Strachan as one of his best friends, is one of Central America's wealthiest families and is an investor in Bain Capital. Both Poma and Strachan are close to former Honduran president Ricardo Maduro. Maduros' company Inversiones la Paz manages Poma's Grupo Roble and Grupo Poma's Honduran subsidiarias.

The idea for the Charter City was reportedly presented to current Honduran leader Porfirio Lobo through Xavier Arguello Carazo, private secretary to the President of Honduras during Ricardo Maduro's term. Maduro is on the Presidential Model City Advisory Committee.

MIGUEL FACUSSE

In the map of oligarchic fiefdoms that overlays Central America, the areas proposed as the home of the future Model City / Charter City is controlled by palm oil magnates, principally Honduran Miguel Facusse who gained control of the territory through violence and fraud, taking wealth from the State and its citizens, and using public funds from international development banks and national banks.

Though Facusse has never been associated with the Charter Cities in any public way, it is impossible to escape the fact that he has territorial control over much of the area surrounding proposed Charter Cities. His hold on much of that territory is challenged by campesino and Garifuna communities who never accepted the transfer of their lands to his control, and the control of a set of large landholders who appear to coordinate with Facusse, sharing security forces.

While the exact location of the first Charter City is unclear, there is virtually nowhere in Honduras that land conflicts of this nature do not exist, the legacy of the Washington Consensus' land modernization. It looks as though the free marketeers and Libertarians may be starting the world's first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land stolen from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras.

The Model (Charter) Cities proposal is hardly a new set of transparent rules, it follows the tradition of imposing laws through networks of power controlled by wealthy nations - neo-colonialism.

Annie Bird, co-director Rights Action
[email protected]
202-680-3002

Gee. Wonder how much a time share will cost? In lives.

[arcane1]

1. What could possibly go wrong?

[Octafish]

2. Worstworld

Totally un-Democratic. Dancing with the Stars will be On Demand, though.

[KoKo]

7. Or as Condi Rice & later the Wall St. Banksters made famous..."Who Could Have Known?"

K&R!

The Law of Unanticipated Consequences in action once again?

[nanabugg]

27. First hurricane comes along....they are on their own too. nt

[leftstreet]

3. Good God

Thanks for putting all this together

DURec

[Octafish]

9. Hong Kong in Honduras

Is how The Economist put it:

Hong Kong in Honduras

An ambitious development project aims to pull a Central American country out of its economic misery. Can it work?

Dec 10th 2011

EXCERPT...

The Honduran regions are modelled on a concept called “charter cities” developed by Paul Romer, an economics professor at New York University. The principle is simple: take a piece of uninhabited land big enough for a city of several million, govern it by well-tried rules and let those who like the idea move there. The aim is to replicate the success of such places as Hong Kong, not as colonial outposts but as models of development.

Mr Romer is best known for his insights about technology, not as a constitutional theorist. But the project stems naturally from his research, chiefly the “new growth theory” that he helped develop in the 1990s. This adds ideas—particularly technological know-how—to the inputs of land, labour and capital that in traditional economic theory are needed for growth. More recently he has focused on the rules of open science and governance systems, which help people to deal with each other and think up ideas.

Today his main interest is “meta-rules”: how to move from bad rules, which keep people in poverty, to the sort that lets them thrive. These, he reckons, matter just as much as the better-studied questions around technological change. “What types of mechanisms will allow developing countries to copy the rules that work well in the rest of the world?” he asks.

SNIP...

A clean slate allows government authorities to experiment with laws and governance or copy those that have worked elsewhere, says Mr Romer. A further spin-off, potentially of great interest to rich countries such as America struggling with illegal migration, is that the new entity's open door gives the huddled masses an alternative: instead of risking their lives on perilous journeys to cross borders illegally, they can move legally to a charter city.

CONTINUED...

http://www.economist.com/node/21541392

You are welcome, leftstreet! Thank you for caring about where the world is heading.

[Downwinder]

13. Something is being lost in the translation from

stateside Charter Cities. It is coming out more like Company Towns.

[sulphurdunn]

20. Uninhabited land?

What inhabited land? If being uninhabited by humans is the criterion, I would suggest building one of these company towns on Wall Street. Oh, yea, I forgot. It already is one.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. But our cities aren't working! And poor people live in them!

Just giving you the familiar charter school talking points.

[Frustratedlady]

5. And the whites are becoming the minority in many cities in the US.

That's what all of this boils down to. They want the 1950s back.

[knitter4democracy]

6. Anyone who knows a damn thing about Honduras would know this is stupid.

WTFF?!

This is a mess and a half. *shudders*

[Taverner]

8. There was this movie once..."Robocop" I think it was called....

Kinda told us what would happen

[Zalatix]

10. Back then if you said Robocop was our future you'd be accused of watching 1 too many sci-fi flicks.

Believe me, I know from experience.

[theaocp]

11. Delta City, baby... n/t

[tclambert]

23. Ah, yes, Omni Consumer Products, aka Omnicorp--the ideal business according to Republicans.

In 2013 a remake of Robocop should hit the theaters. They set up a real website for the fake Omnicorp:

http://www.omnicorp.com/

[DollarBillHines]

12. They are already murdering/assassinating the opposition

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A land rights group says famed Honduran human rights lawyer Antonio Trejo Cabrera has been shot to death while attending a wedding.

The Peasants Movement of the valley of Bajo Aguan says in a statement that Trejo was shot five times Sunday.

The lawyer had represented three lands rights groups in disputes between agrarian organizations and landowners. More than 60 people have been killed in such disputes over the past two years. Trejo had also helped prepare motions declaring unconstitutional a proposal to build three privately run cities with their own police, laws and tax systems.

Just hours before his murder, Trejo had participated in a televised debate in which he accused congressional leaders of using the private city projects to raise campaign funds.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/honduras-human-rights-lawyer-who-opposed-private-cities-murdered/2012/09/23/059ff77a-05a5-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_story.html

[Octafish]

21. ''Just hours before his murder, Trejo had participated in a televised debate ...

...in which he accused congressional leaders of using the private city projects to raise campaign funds."

From 2009, when the coup was new:

The Honduras coup is a sign: the radical tide can be turned

If this were Burma or Iran the assault on democracy would be a global cause celebre.
Instead, Obama is sitting on his hands

Seumas Milne
The Guardian, Wednesday 12 August 2009

EXCERPT...

Zelaya's attempt to hold a non-binding public consultation on a further vote for a constitutional convention was the trigger for the June coup. The move was portrayed by the coup's apologists as an attempt to extend Zelaya's term in office, which could not have happened whatever the result. But, as in the case of the Chilean coup of 1973, a supreme court decision to brand any constitutional referendum unlawful has been used by US and Latin American conservatives to give an entirely spurious veneer of legality to Zelaya's overthrow.

Behind these manoeuvres, the links between Honduras and US military, state and corporate interests are among the closest in the hemisphere. Honduras was the base for the US Contra war against Nicaragua in the 1980s; it hosts the largest US military base in the region; and it is almost completely dependent economically on the US, both in terms of trade and investment.

Whatever prior traffic there may have been between the Honduran plotters and US officialdom, it's clear that the Obama administration could pull the plug on the coup regime tomorrow by suspending military aid and imposing sanctions. But so far, despite public condemnations, the president has yet to withdraw the US ambassador, let alone block the coup leaders' visas or freeze their accounts, as Zelaya has requested.

Meanwhile, an even more ambivalent line is being followed by Hillary Clinton. Instead of calling for the restoration of the elected president, the secretary of state – one of whose longstanding associates, Lanny Davis, is now working as a lobbyist for the coup leaders – promoted a compromising mediation and condemned Zelaya as "reckless" for trying to return to Honduras across the Nicaraguan border. A clue as to why that might be was given by the state department's Phillip Crowley, who explained that the coup should be a "lesson" to Zelaya for regarding revolutionary Venezuela as a model for the region.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/honduras-coup-democracy-barack-obama

Heartbreaking, considering what the Empire does overseas, they have no compunction against doing at home.

Thank you, DollarBillHines, for caring about what this really is all about.

[DollarBillHines]

30. Here's my response to one of Judy Lynn's post on that subject

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1108&pid=5639

[Octafish]

36. Thank you, DollarBillHines! She is a hero of mine...

She's been on the case for...ever.

Abducted Honduras reporter Alfredo Villatoro found dead

PS: Thanks also for understanding what We the People are up against and taking a stand!

[malaise]

14. Imperialism gone mad

This planet is out of control

[truedelphi]

17. You meant to say "Democracy" gone mad, right?

I mean, "imperialism" is so early-20th-Century a term...

[HiPointDem]

15. omg. trying to find your post again i found this has been going on for a while:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/searchresults.html?q=charter+cities&sitesearch=democraticunderground.com&sa=Search!&domains=democraticunderground.com&client=pub-7805397860504090&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A11&hl=en


am i alone in feeling 'creeping coup'? just wondering.

[hootinholler]

16. Speechless

But here's a kick.

[Starry Messenger]

18. They sound like the mafia.

Seriously, these rich douchebags could afford to live where and how they want, practically free from laws anyway. But no, they have to go and start their own cities now on the bodies of people who can not fight back. Unspeakable.

[ibegurpard]

19. Coming soon to the good old U S of A

count on it.

[arcane1]

28. We're already sell off town squares, etc, to corporate interests

And there's that Disneyville or whatever they called it.

I liked this idea better when they wanted to float around in the middle of the ocean.

[proverbialwisdom]

35. Likely.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/31/wall-streets-war-on-the-cities/

Weekend Edition Aug 31-Sep 02, 2012

Why Bondholders Can’t – and Shouldn’t – be Paid

Wall Street’s War on the Cities

by MICHAEL HUDSON

[awoke_in_2003]

22. St. Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go....

I owe my soul to the company store.

[tclambert]

24. Tennessee Ernie Ford--16 tons

[Dawson Leery]

25. This is a back door to fascism.

More "libertarian" B.S.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/27/paul-romers-charter-cities-idea

[Octafish]

32. Democracy has become a vacuum cleaner of money and power for the Predator Class

Sad to say.

Paul Romer is a brilliant economist – but his idea for charter cities is bad

His wheeze that poor countries swap sovereignty for prosperity smacks of colonialism

Aditya Chakrabortty
Guardian Monday 26 July 2010

EXCERPT...

Trouble is, the idea stinks. With little track record in dealing with poor countries, Romer has come up a grand scheme for lifting Africa and Asia out of poverty. What they need to do, he argues, is give up a big chunk of their land to a rich country. Policy experts from Washington can take over a patch of Rwanda, and invite along GM and Microsoft and Gap to come and set up factories. Poor countries give up their sovereignty in return for the promise of greater prosperity.

His big example is Hong Kong. At the end of the first opium war in 1842, the Chinese were marched on board a British warship anchored off Nanjing and forced to sign Hong Kong away to Queen Victoria. Over the next 150 years, the little island turned into Asia's number one capitalist success story. It was an example that Deng Xiaoping ended up copying on the mainland, in coastal provinces such as Guangdong – to explosive economic effect.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/27/paul-romers-charter-cities-idea

Thank you, Dawson Leery, for the heads-up on Romer and the New Colonialism Neo Feudalism Nuevo Fascisto PNAC pro-Roil BFEE so-and-sos.

[Hugabear]

26. Welcome back, slavery and child labor!

It's been far too long! When corporations get to write the laws from scratch, we all win!

[TroubleMan]

29. LOL - it's like the background of the game Bioshock

and the results will probably be just as bad, too. Rapture was a libertarian's paradise and they eventually all killed each other for the most part.

[DCKit]

31. Are they going to mow their own lawns? Raise their own kids? Wipe the butts of their elderly?

It's a non-starter.

[Judi Lynn]

33. Doesn't look like social evolution, does it? This is staggering information.

How horrid is is to learn the grandson of Milton Friedman, connected to a sadistic, evil coup-engineered, US puppet butcher, torturer dictator in Chile, is connected to this greedy, vicious, powerful oligarchy in Honduras who created the coup against another elected President.

If the grandson had any honor, he would have NEVER followed this path, after knowing so well where it leads.

Had seen many early references to these new charter cities in the making, but of course not one corporate media source breathed a word about the criminality behind them. Once again conservatives show us they have no respect for the law, not really, nor any hint of respect for democracy, and I did see Patri Friedman said democracy is not compatible with Libertarian principles. Hideous.

The material you've posted must be studied, remembered, and shared. It's too important to put aside.

Thank you for your unwavering work toward hope, enlightment. In the end, the good people of the world are going to win against these spiritually diseased, rotting "personalities".

[Judi Lynn]

34. Honduras: Investigate Murder of Rights Lawyer

Honduras: Investigate Murder of Rights Lawyer
Killers of Antonio Trejo Should Be Brought to Justice
September 24, 2012

Authorities in Honduras should ensure a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation into the killing of attorney Antonio Trejo Cabrera, Human Rights Watch said today. Trejo, a lawyer who advocated for peasant land rights and publicly opposed the creation of special autonomous development zones, was shot and killed on September 22, 2012, after attending a wedding south of Tegucigalpa.

“Authorities need to act swiftly to bring to justice those responsible for Trejo’s murder, and send a clear message that attacks on human rights defenders will be dealt with firmly,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

Trejo was shot several times at approximately 9:30 pm, just after he exited the church where the wedding had taken place. He was taken to the hospital but died shortly after arriving. The circumstances of his murder strongly suggest that it was a targeted killing and he was not a victim of common crime.

According to news reports, police have opened an investigation into Trejo’s murder.

Trejo was the lead lawyer for a peasant group in the Bajo Aguán Valley, the Movimiento Auténtico Reivindicador Campesino del Aguán (MARCA), which has had a longstanding territorial dispute with local landowners. More than 80 people have been killed in related violence in the valley in the last three years, according to local human rights groups.

More: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/24/honduras-investigate-murder-rights-lawyer

[NuttyFluffers]

37. welcome to Shadowrun

or Cyberpunk 2020?

i guess either could work.

[Judi Lynn]

38. Architect of Honduran privatised cities drops out over lack of transparency

Architect of Honduran privatised cities drops out over lack of transparency

Paul Romer attacks Honduran government over its failure to ensure accountability of the new privately-run cities.

By Alex Hern Published 25 September 2012 8:18

Honduras' plans for "model cities" – entire settlements managed by private corporations – already seem to be settling in to a pattern of secrecy and corruption worthy of the best dystopian futures.

The idea to create the cities – known as Regions Especial de Dessarrollo (Special Development Regions), or REDs – was suggested a year ago, but this month the first deals were signed, with US-based investment group MGK, to build one.

The Financial Times' Ron Buchanan reported (£):

The model cities are to be states within a state, with their own legal and law enforcement agencies, tax and monetary systems – “Hello US dollar”, “Adiós Honduran lempira”, presumably – and every conceivable facility to attract investment.

The concept sounds like a steroid-enhanced vision of a free-market enthusiast. Which it is. The US economist Paul Romer has dreamed up the idea of creating cities, along the lines of Hong Kong and Singapore, which have created poles of dynamic investment that have spilled over into their once impoverished hinterlands.

More:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/architect-honduran-privatised-cities-drops-out-over-lack-transparency