I've been taken by surprise by a coup in Honduras. Completely bushwacked. I don't know what to think.
How am I going to fit these events into my neat little world view of political superstitions and preconceptions? The news is no help, it's all about Michael Jackson's money problems, drug use and sex life, before and after his untimely death. No one seems to care in the Main Stream Media.

So I log on to the internet, what do I find? Apparently, whatever you want to believe. Some sources give you the bare bones, times, dates, places, names. Useful, but insufficient. But what about analysis, interpretation? Who are the good guys, the bad guys? Are there even any good or bad guys? The lefties tell me this is a democratically elected hero of the people forced out in a brutal coup by the forces of fascist reaction. The righties tell me Zelaya and his ally Chavez were on the verge of instituting a Communist takeover and that only quick, constitutional action was able to prevent it. Sincere, compelling voices chime in on both sides, with wildly varying amounts of urgency and alarm and different levels of conviction, but apparently, equal amounts of erudition and legitimacy. What's a news junkie to believe?

I go to my own leaders for information, and I get the story, but its a completely different story than the one I would have heard from my President if this coup had occurred six months ago. I know a guy at work who's from Honduras, but he hasn't been there in thirty years, what does he know? I have a feeling I know who my Cuban friends in Miami are going to support in this dispute, and I can guarantee it wont be the same side my Cuban friends in Tampa are going to back. Do I ask TB or Bowzer on the Zone? They keep up with this stuff--Naaaah...I already know what they're both going to say. I could tune into Radio Honduras on my Yacht Boy tonight, but I have a feeling (if they're on the air at all) that it will be a completely different story than if I had tuned in a week ago. I could hop a jet to Honduras and ask a bunch of people on the street what they think, but would they tell me, and what if they split on whose side they picked? Do I conduct a scientific survey?

Or I could start collecting every bit of information I could possibly get on the country, its history and politics, cross-referencing and correllating, and slowly build up a picture of what is going on, perhaps even move down there permanently and see for myself. Well, of course, that's not practical, and anyone who would do that, or who would otherwise be knowledgeable of that county and familiar with events there, would probably have an axe to grind and couldn't be trusted anyway.

In short, there's no way we can really figure out what's going on down there from here. No, I'm not talking about any philosophical ambiguity, or the fuzzy and subjective nature of truth or reality. There really is an objective world independent of our belief in it. But the important point is that it is our belief that makes the world real for us. There are good and sincere people much more knowledgeable about this issue than I am who STILL have totally different opinions on it, different enough, I'll wager, to fight over. What do I know? Who am I to preach to them?

Regardless of what we know, or what we learn, or even how much we change our minds, we hammer it into the existing framework of our prejudices and opinions and education and that determines how we perceive political reality. This is as true of you or me as it is of two Hondurans shouting at each other across a table in a café in Tegucigalpa. At least, I hope they're still free to talk in public...