RE: Daily Dose of Sultnpapper 10/19/18> Message from @cecicastor you need to read in this edition.
I'm really sad to hear this. I've read some of @cecicastor's posts on the situation in Nicaragua, but I always seem to get to them more than seven days after she posted them. I don't often listen to the "news" these days, but I do check into the BBC Online website, and I don't think the situation in Nicaragua is being covered much over here.
My sister is a doctor, and she did her elective in Nicaragua, around 1990. Me and the rest of the family were terrified about her going over there at the time, although the situation there had become relatively peaceful when she went. I started reading up about the situation over there, and that might have been the first time I had my eyes opened to how the developed countries often meddle in these situations. Bizarrely, it was an article in the Daily Mail that informed me what the Reagan-supported Contras had been up to in that country.
When my sister came home safe and well a few months later, she had fallen in love with the place. She said the people over there were incredibly friendly and warm-hearted, and when she'd shown them photos of me, they'd said I must be Nicaraguan. She came home loving Latin American music and dancing, and not long afterwards, she went to work in an orphanage in Guatemala for a year, where she met her husband.
So I'm really sorry to hear of the trouble in Nicaragua. It's so sad, and I hope @cecicastor and her family are safe. She has been through a dreadful run of bad luck recently, and I hope that things improve for her.
Yes, most Latin America people I have met are just really good folks that would give you the shirt off their back knowing that they don't have another one.
It is amazing how things can get so bad because the dictator is flipping nuts.
It might not be quite as simple as a "dictator" going nuts. I'm not trying to paint Daniel Ortega as an angel, but it's certainly worth looking into this further. There are many questions to be asked about what is going on there. @cecicastor might be the best person to answer them, but this article offers an interesting perspective on the situation.
She definitely would be a good one to answer them since she is living there and has first hand knowledge and the experience of many years of living there. But as she has stated before, the people have become tired of Danny boy's failed policies and the use of public money for his personal gain of wealth and his close associates.
I am also sure that having the US sticking their nose in over there in the business hasn't helped either. The people tried peacefully to get change and that hadn't worked, they started becoming more vocal and protesting more especially about the economic conditions and that is what has led to where they are right now.
When I said he went nuts I meant that; and if giving orders to shot and kill your people of your country is something that you can do without being nuts than maybe I am the one who is nuts for thinking that has to be the case.
The power to command people to kill others in itself is nuts to begin with and that people will actually follow those commands is even nuttier yet, especially when it may be your neighbors and family right in your own town.
Most anyone in any country would probably tell you that all they want is to be left alone and allowed to live without being interfered with. Those days are long gone now and may never be seen again.
All I can say is that killing people is wrong unless the situation is "kill or be killed" and that would be self defense. Shooting and killing unarmed protesters because they disagree with your policies is nuts and those people serving as police and military there are as nuts as the man giving the orders to do such.
The really sad part is that in the end a lot of people will die, there will end up being change in leadership eventually, and in a few years it will be the same thing being done over again, just different names to be filled in in place of Danny.
You're right - there are always two sides to every story, and the fact that the American government did not distinguish itself in Nicaragua in the 1980s doesn't necessarily mean that the current regime in that country is not behaving badly. Shooting protesters is very wrong indeed, as is looting people's taxes for your own personal use.
Truth is generally the first casualty in war, and that goes for truth on both sides of the divide, and it's very sad when there is a divide. Often both sides are behaving badly with the people caught up in the middle.
The one good thing in all this is that people outside Nicaragua are starting to discuss what's going on. I'll certainly try to pay more attention to this situation.
I don't trust one thing the US government has to stay or what they do and I live here. I have seen the lies and corruption right here first hand and it is not hard to understand why people around the world have a disdain for the US and its leaders.
The sad part is the media here is under the control of the government so there is no truth in what is reported here by the news media and most people have no idea what is taking place not only here at home but also abroad.
We are quick to blame everything that happens on others and then look to punish them with military force when the truth is a lot of the things that "happened" never even took place or were instigated by the covert actions of US agencies to begin with.
One of the more recent ones that came to light was the operation named "fast and furious" where the US government was supplying automatic weapons to the drug cartels in Mexico, and then were outraged when one of the US border patrol agents was gunned down by one of those weapons in a shootout on the border with the drug cartels.
To the best of my knowledge no one in the government was ever charged with a crime in that situation, just told "don't do it again.".
It is so difficult to get to the truth in these situations. I certainly don't trust "The News". And I think our government in the UK is just as bad, but generally more sneaky about it. They're very good at getting other groups or even other countries to do the dirty work, and if it's found out, they pretend to know nothing about it.
The US and the UK are two peas in a pod and both owned by the Royal family, the people here in the US don't know but it is true, that is one reason the US is always fighting in wars, we do the dirty work for the Royals.
Yup! That's why you used to see a lot of photos of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew posing with the Saudi Royals. Smoothing the path for arms deals. To be honest, I'm not sure how much choice the Royals themselves have in all this - they may be pawns in the Great Game. It's all a murky business.