Reply #28: I'm getting flashbacks of the late 70's-early 80's

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This pattern of right-wingers in the US supporting and cooperating with ultra-right-wingers in Latin America is painfully reminiscent of the situation during the Carter administration, when fascist regimes were being supported by groups like WACL and CIS, by right-wing politicians like Jesse Helms, and by rogue elements of the CIA.

After working behind Carter's back -- and in some cases actively undermining him -- those groups went on in the early Reagan years to carry out much of the administration's illegal Latin American strategy. They supported the Contras, they cheered on death squad leaders, and they harassed and terrorized US opponents of the Latin American fascist regimes.

Many of the same people and groups are still around, on both the US and Latin American sides. Dan Burton -- mentioned in the OP -- was closely associated with Helms back in the 80's. Dana Rohrabacher is another name out of that period.

Two groups funded with taxpayer money through the National Endowment for Democracy -- the International Republican Institute and the Center for International Private Enterprise -- appear to be in close contact with the ultra-conservative Venezuelan group CEDICE. Those groups (and others on the more liberal end of the spectrum) were founded in 1983 to do openly what the CIA had been doing illegally in the way of meddling in other countries' elections. Their activities have generally been more-or-less in alignment with US foreign policy -- but now I'm getting a strong sense that they may be preparing to go rogue and start actively sabotaging Obama's policies.

Anti-communism was one of the strongest organizing principles for the Republican Party over many decades, helping bring together business interests, libertarians, and other groups that might not otherwise have had anything in common. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the GOP has been reduced to its essentially non-existent domestic agenda and as a result has become increasingly fragmented. They'd love nothing more than to get that sort of consensus back.

In a lot of what's been going on lately, I can see seeds of an attempt to turn "anti-socialism" into a new organizing principle that applies to both foreign governments that challenge the dominance of US corporations and progressive or pro-labor policies at home. Support for the Honduran coup may not have much traction as an issue right now -- but if it helps them get their messages and their mailing lists together, it could be a harbinger of things to come.