dagblog - Comments for "Distorting Past and Present: Reuters on Nicaragua’s Armed Uprising"

I would like to add that I

artappraiser — Sat, 25 Aug 2018 00:36:24 +0000

In reply to Arta, I read everything you

I would like to add that I put a link to the wikipedia entry on Giaconda Belli for a reason. I myself will often check out an author like that, especially for something like this. But also for those who weren't going to access the full piece. Though born to wealthy family, she was a genuine card carrying high level Sandinista and still appears to very much be a lefty simpatico with things like indigenous south american movements and feminism oriented toward latinas of the working class. The earlier part of the article makes it clear she is still proud of her involvement with the original Sandinista movement. What changed in her personal life: she married an American reporter for NPR, so she is partly in LA now <sarcasm> oh my gawd, sold out! totally explains the antipathy to Ortega, lying warmongering NPR, that's like going over to the dark side of the corporate evil MSM hegemon </sarcasm>

The woman is a true lefty Nicaraguan, not to mention heavily into (almost overly) politically correct socio-cultural causes, a former Sandinista who really hasn't changed her ways that much, okay? That tells me something about interpreting what she says now about Ortega. Gives her a certain credibility to make the claims she does.

I happen to think her essay is a rare chance for everyone interested to really get truth from an involved horse's mouth, and for that reason I really meant it when I recommended that people register to read it in full.

Reminds me of that Kiev

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 23:55:00 +0000

In reply to I believe that government

Reminds me of that Kiev discussion long ago where you were sure jackbooted Ukrainian government was firing into the crowd. where are those Ukrainian brownshirts now? I thought fer shure 4 years later we'd have gas ovens, but nada, zilch.

http://dagblog.com/comment/199385

On the meta here, I want to

artappraiser — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 23:42:50 +0000

In reply to After all of that, you can't

On the meta here, I want to take a minute to make myself clear. I always read your replies but I often chose not to answer them. And I see you sometimes get upset with that. I want you to understand that I do that because I just don't like the same things you do, I don't want to debate Lulu's theory of the world over and over and over. I am not trying to insult, I am trying to stay away from insulting, by not answering. And letting you have last word.

I see it this way: you are stuck in a rut where you go around trying to prove something, a kind of conspiracy about the past and the western media's participation in believing U.S. leaders and not telling the truth to the public, and you do that now by cherry picking news about the current world to prove the point that it's all the same as it always was.
I don't think the 21st century is the same as 1970 I think things have changed. A lot. In a major way. I rarely like debating on any topic much less one that I don't agree with about what I think is long gone history. The problem is no longer that the powers that be control information and the media, it's more the opposite now: information chaos. I simply prefer trying to figure out what's going on present and trying from that to see a little into the near future. I am really not interested in arguing late 20th century foreign policy over and over according to an ideological construct favored by certain lefty websites.

After all of that, you can't

artappraiser — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 23:25:04 +0000

In reply to Arta, I read everything you

After all of that, you can't see that it's no longer the same Sandinista government? And Al Jazeera and the U.N. are in on the plot to hide that it's still all the U.S.' fault? Sometimes you sound worse than Qanon fans. Hot tip: when all kinds of varied media sources and independent observers that often disagree on a whole lot of other things generally agree about something that's going on somewhere: it might just not be the same old MSM conspiracy to lie for the powers that be.

Note: I didn't disagree with the deconstruction of the Reuters coverage by Fair. I just let that stand for a reason.What I did is go looking for MORE from others with other points of view. What I found in the end: it's not telling the whole story, all it's doing is picking on Reuters sloppiness.You, on the other hand, seem to have taken one FAIR story as evidence of your preconceptions and left it at that. Lulu's view of the world verified once again. What does it do for you to have the presumption that the U.S. controls what happens in the whole world and is the source of nearly everything gone bad?

I wasn't looking to argue with you. I was adding to the one thing you posted, to try to fill out the narrative for everyone to get more informed. Even thinking maybe someone else finds more interesting stuff and adds it. But then you reacted same old, same old polemics. As if everyone is as interested in fighting that particular polemic war as you are.

Given that, I don't really see you wanting to get informed on Nicaraguan situation, I see you wanting to confirm your bias about U.S. foreign policy that you've held for decades. Sorry, I just can't buy that you really are open minded about wanting to know what's going on in Nicaragua.

I believe that government

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 23:25:00 +0000

In reply to I cannot imagine anyone,

I believe that government forces that were trying to stop the rioting crowds would meet them head on. I believe that sniping at the crowds would enrage the protestors and in affect encourage the revolt. I was not judging any government armed force as benevolent and above violence. Firing into both the crowd and the police ranks is a tactic of instigators.

I cannot imagine anyone,

barefooted — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 23:03:27 +0000

In reply to Arta, I read everything you

I cannot imagine anyone, whose interest was in trying to support the Sandinista government, thinking that murdering protestors would be a way to calm things down.

I could not possibly have interpreted that correctly, Lulu. In my take, you're suggesting that a government and/or its supporters would not kill people to squash continued opposition to said government. Please correct me.

Arta, I read everything you

A Guy Called LULU — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 22:56:00 +0000

In reply to excerpt (I recommend signing

Arta, I read everything you posted although I did not register to read the one piece in full. Because I am interested in Nicaragua I have been following the news about its troubles. In addition to news sites I have gone on Nicaragua expat forums. There is a range of opinions there too. I have already heard every anti-Sandinista and ant-Ortega charge made in in the pieces you quoted from. I also have read some rebuttals of the most lopsided charges. Did you actually read the article in "Fair"? Did you notice that it was mostly about biased reporting on the subject? It gave many examples. That said, everything you posted may be gospel. It certainly reminds me of the Seventh Day Adventist missionary whom I told that I did not accept the bible as as infallible reference to the true word of God. They pointed to scripture in the Bible that proved me wrong.

In three days, 23 young people were killed by snipers and police.

As I said, I have been paying attention and giving the story some thought. I can imagine snipers being used by instigators to ramp up violence and encourage the rioting and civil disruption. I cannot imagine anyone, whose interest was in trying to support the Sandinista government, thinking that murdering protestors would be a way to calm things down. It makes me wonder if I should automatically believe that the snipers acted in support of the Sandinista government even if an 'expert' who didn't witness it either said so. Maybe raiding hospitals and yanking babies from incubators and throwing them on the floor would make a better story. It worked once before. For a while. For long enough to serve its purpose.

Dayum. Sorry to make

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 20:45:37 +0000

In reply to excerpt (I recommend signing

Dayum. Sorry to make everything Hillary, but the outrage over Hillary accepting the 2009 coup in Honduras was stupendous, but here's a much worse situation over the years - crickets.

excerpt (I recommend signing

artappraiser — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 20:11:36 +0000

In reply to Here's Nicaraguan feminist

excerpt (I recommend signing up for the site and reading it in full as the one free article per month):

[.....] RETURN TO POWER

Ortega ran for president and lost in 1990, 1996, and 2001. On November 6, 2006, he finally won. That night, standing on a platform at the center of the most conspicuous roundabout in Managua, surrounded by the flags of the FSLN, Ortega and Murillo both looked exultant. A man not known for showing affection to his wife, he hugged and kissed her, provoking the applause of the crowd. He owed her a lot. When, in 1998, Murillo’s daughter from a previous marriage came out and accused Ortega of sexually abusing her since she was 11, Murillo disavowed her daughter. In a speech shortly after the accusation, Ortega said she had asked him to beg the people to forgive her for giving birth to such a person.

Murillo’s loyalty earned her an unusual measure of power within the party. During the election campaign, she gave him an image makeover, portraying him as a conciliatory man moved by deep sentiments of love for the poor and disenfranchised. She washed out sandinismo’s defiant, leftist impression by replacing the party’s traditional red and black colors with slick advertising in fuchsia and turquoise. She went as far as pirating the melody of a Beatles song, “Give Peace a Chance,” writing her own lyrics that promised work, peace, and reconciliation. She was also instrumental in Ortega’s return to the Catholic Church and his alliance with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who in a previous election had warned Nicaraguans against electing Ortega, mentioning a parable where a good man picks up a despondent serpent from the road only to be bitten and killed. In 2005, Murillo and Ortega were married in a religious ceremony officiated by Obando y Bravo. In their public rhetoric, the couple also adopted the discourse of televangelists after professing their atheism for many years. And to top it all off, Ortega made a promise to ban therapeutic abortion, a right Nicaraguan women had had since the nineteenth century. The ban passed in 2006 with the votes of the FSLN.

But Ortega’s biggest stroke of luck—and most serious betrayal of his revolutionary past—was the bargain he struck with Arnoldo Alemán, who served as president from 1996 until 2001. In exchange for a constitutional reform, passed in 2000, enlarging the National Assembly, Supreme Court, Comptroller’s Office, and Electoral Council in order to make room for Alemán’s men, the FSLN approved a modification in the electoral law that allowed a presidential candidate to be elected the first round with only 35 percent of the vote, provided that there was at least a five percent margin between the first- and second-place candidates. Ortega won the 2006 election with 38 percent of the vote, the lowest ever for a winning candidate.

WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN

Ortega became president in 2007 under good auspices. Thanks to the good administration of the previous president, Enrique Bolaños, and, beginning in 2007, $500 million a year from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, the Nicaraguan economy was in good shape. Yet the couple privatized Venezuela’s money, creating an FSLN economic empire that allowed the party to increase its influence over the political system. Ortega, Murillo, and their inner circle monopolized control of the finances. They purchased Nicaragua’s best and most powerful TV channels and media outlets and named their sons and daughters directors. With Venezuela’s riches at his disposal, Ortega used blackmail and bribery to co-opt Alemán loyalists in key government posts, making a millionaire out of the corrupt head of the electoral council, Roberto Rivas, who became the target of U.S. sanctions in 2017. Ortega was also savvy enough to calm the fears of Nicaragua’s powerful big business community, engaging with them in what came to be known as a model of “dialogue and consensus.” He offered them tax exemptions and other perks in exchange for their political cooperation. And the scheme worked, for a while. Although the income gap grew considerably, the economy surged, powered by large tourism projects, sweat shops, exports to Venezula, and a booming real estate sector.

Politics for Ortega meant staying in power, and stay in power he did. Although the Nicaraguan Constitution barred presidents from serving consecutive terms, in 2011, the Supreme Court, stacked with FSLN loyalists, ruled that Ortega could be reelected, which he was in November of that year. Then, in 2014, the National Assembly changed the constitution to allow for indefinite reelection, as well as granting him sole authority to appoint military and police commanders. For the 2016 elections, Ortega barred international observers and used the Supreme Court to remove the main opposition candidate, Eduardo Montealegre, as leader of the Independent Liberal Party. Finally, he chose his wife to be his running mate. On election day, November 5, 2016, voting booths in Managua were deserted. Independent election monitors calculated a 70 percent abstention rate. It was a sign of things to come.

By the beginning of Ortega’s third consecutive term, Nicaraguans felt trapped in a tyrannical system, at a loss for ways to defeat it. The only remaining opposition to Ortega was a campesino movement, which emerged after the Sandinistas had passed a law on June 13th, 2013allowing the government to confiscate private and indigenous communal property and then cede it to the Chinese company HKND as part of a plan to build an interoceanic canal—a project that is now dead in the water. Murillo, who had been the regime’s communications director before becoming vice-president, had shaped the discourse of the regime into something Orwellian, esoteric, and religious. Gigantic billboards showed the smiling couple and text, written in Murillo’s handwriting: “It’s a victorious time for the grace of God. Nicaragua is love. Nicaragua is Christian, socialist and empathetic. Daniel and Rosario.” She had pursued other eccentric measures, too, such as erecting a forest of 125 gigantic and brightly colored metallic trees in Managua that made the city look like an amusement park. Both she and her husband boasted about progress and safety, about the country’s growing economy and booming tourist industry.

But in April, their fiction of a prosperous and politically stable Nicaragua collapsed like a house of cards. On April 16, in a press conference the government announced cuts to the Social Security system, a desperate measure to rescue its depleted finances, affected by mismanagement and the drastic reduction of Venezuela’s aid. Small protests began in different cities but then on April 18, in Managua, a group of thugs dressed in T-shirts inscribed with “love,” allegedly Sandinista Youth, dissolved a protest by force, beating demonstrators mercilessly. It was not the first time the government had repressed popular protests—in 2013, a similarly attired Sandinista group backed by police assailed a vigil held by young people who sided with seniors demanding social security rights. But that attack happened at night. On April 18, the assault took place in full daylight. Images quickly began to circulate on social media: a popular NGO director with blood all over her face, a journalist left unconscious by a beating, defenseless university students attacked with metal rods while the police stood by and did nothing.In April, Ortega's fiction of a prosperous and politically stable Nicaragua collapsed like a house of cards.

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Students took refuge at their universities and continued the protests. In three days, 23 young people were killed by snipers and police. Their wounds and bodies were filmed by fellow students and shown on social media. The regime shut down independent TV stations and radios. Ortega was in Cuba, where he attended the April 19 inauguration of the new Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Murillo was in command. When her husband returned, he withdrew the reforms on April 22, stopped censorship, and sought a dialogue mediated by the Catholic Church. It was too late. People had taken to the streets, infuriated by the deaths. The chants against the regime echoed all across the country: “Que se vayan!They must leave!” After eleven years of passively watching Ortega and Murillo close their grip on the country, people poured into the streets in every major city

Like many, I was astonished by the rapidly unfolding events, by the renewed valor and defiance of the crowds marching and demanding their freedom. For several weeks, we lived the euphoria of regaining power [.....]

Here's Nicaraguan feminist

artappraiser — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 19:54:14 +0000

In reply to Distorting Past and Present: Reuters on Nicaragua’s Armed Uprising

Here's Nicaraguan feminist writer and former Sandinista Gioconda Belli (...In 1970, Belli joined the struggle against the Somoza dictatorship, sworn into the movement by Camilo Ortega's wife Leana. Belli's work for the movement led to her being forced into exile in Mexico in 1975. Returning in 1979 just before the Sandinista victory, she became FSLN's nternational press liaison in 1982 and the director of State Communications in 1984...)

How Daniel Ortega Became a Tyrant; From Revolutionary to Strongman

for ForeignAffairs.com, Aug. 24