[Red_Army]

Thanks for the information, skinster.

[skinster]

No probs. I'm not saying Jacobin is completely dogshit, btw, they post some good stuff too, but they also post things that promote/justify US wars too, it's happening more and more lately.

[Sivad]

You have a tendency to say that about journalists/activists you once like and get upset with because they report things in ways that deviate from your worldview.

It doesn't deviate from my worldview at all so that's not the problem. In my view the US is already a corrupt imperialist power exploiting the shit out of the developing world, if the US was causing most of the problems in Nicaragua that would only support my view. Some may be willing to sacrifice intellectual integrity for political convenience, I'm not.

Perhaps it's you who's wrong? :?:

No, these assholes cross the line when they become apologists for corrupt and oppressive regimes in the name of anti-imperialism. Their stupid bullshit only serves to discredit the entire movement and makes it that much harder for serious people to make the case against imperialism.

I knew exactly what POD meant when he stated what he did, meaning in the ME.

[anarchist23]

The US has engendered or supported right wing regime change in Central and South America since the eighteen hundreds.
Here is a list of these countries during the twentieth century. Many countries had a US regime more than once. lol
Panama
Honduras
Nicaragua
Haiti
Dominican Republic
Guatemala
Brazil
Cuba
Bolivia
Chile
El Salvador
Granada

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change

[skinster]

No no, it's different this time, anarchist.

Look, saint Nikki Haley cares so it must be true!

[jimjam]

let's not forget the Vietnam war when the US empire invaded under the pretext of protecting the world from Communism. 58,220 US soldiers were killed as were millions of Vietnamese. You may now stay at a Hilton Inn on a North Vietnamese beach and the US leaders who got the US into this disgrace actually admitted that the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" which was the excuse for starting the slaughter was a lie.

[Sivad]

let's not forget the Vietnam war

[Sivad]

How Nicaragua Uses Anti-Terror Laws Against Protesters to Suppress Dissent
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/11/nic ... el-ortega/

Maria Peralta her husband, Christian Fajardo, are in a maximum-security facility in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, facing over 30 years in prison. They are just two of more than 300 activists arrested and being prosecuted as part of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s crackdown on protesters who have been calling on him to resign.

Nicaragua plunged into violent upheaval after protests began on April 18, sparked by an unpopular change to the social security system. The demonstrations soon broadened, ballooning into a nationwide, student-led movement against Ortega, who critics say has imposed increasingly authoritarian rule during his 12 consecutive years in power. Thousands in the streets were met with well-armed police and paramilitaries, who fired into crowds, tortured and raped detainees, and arbitrarily detained leaders, the United Nations found. Over 300 people have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and 2,000 arrested.

While the streets have since been cleared of barricades, the country remains in a state of crisis. Thousands have fled to Costa Rica. An unknown number have gone into hiding. Close to 450 Nicaraguans are still imprisoned, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, and the government continues to track and capture its opponents — among them students, farmers, and family members of those killed. Police recently released a statement that banned protests without authorization.

Many of those arrested will be tried as terrorists, thanks to a law passed by the Ortega-controlled Congress in July that expanded the definition of terrorism to include a broad range of crimes, such as damaging property. Those found guilty will get 15 to 20 years in prison.

[Patrickov]

Let me tell you @Pants-of-dog, if a country is unable to handle its own shit then sometimes Imperialism can be justified. Not that Nicaragua is big and threatening enough for this to happen though, so a US-induced regime change will suffice.

US-induced regime change does NOT necessarily mean (US) Imperialism, and as I just said, Imperialism is not necessarily bad -- for example I will be glad if HK is part of the US, but with its own gun control laws, and we get equal political rights with other US citizens.

If you think Imperialism is always bad and depends on a single variable (i.e. whether a large country interferes with a smaller country), you are too naive to comprehend politics.

[Drlee]

The people who believe that imperialism is wrong are generally not those suffering under a repressive regime. I am certain the people of the Philippines are very happy that the US decided to reassert it empire on their island in 1944.

[Tainari88]

Drlee I do not think the Americans wanted to stay forever under an English monarch. To be paternalistic and believe deeply that certain human beings are not quite as equal as others is false. That they need an invasion and they benefit from benevolent invasions from heavily armed and financed nations who intend to impose on them a set of values that are not an organic process that stems from their own histories? It is false Dr Lee.

It always will be false. You can lie to yourself about it. If you respect another culture people? You give them equality. What does that mean? That you have to assume they are capable of achieving what they want without coercion. That they have genius people, and average people and disabled people, they have everything your own group or people have. Period. No false ideas of superiority. None. If you help? It is as equals and without wanting to exploit for selfish reasons.
A tall order I know. But in the end? Humans are great learners and adapters and through the process of experience they reach wisdom. Trust that and not some false ideas of superiority.

[Pants-of-dog]

The people who believe that imperialism is wrong are generally not those suffering under a repressive regime.

Logically, it would make more sense to argue the opposite: that the most vocal critics of imperialism are those who suffer the most from it.

And in my experience, this is precisely the case: all the Latino migrants I grew up with were very critical of imperialism in part because they had to live under a dictatorship and eventually had to flee.

I am certain the people of the Philippines are very happy that the US decided to reassert it empire on their island in 1944.

Why?

[skinster]

[Drlee]

And in my experience, this is precisely the case: all the Latino migrants I grew up with were very critical of imperialism in part because they had to live under a dictatorship and eventually had to flee.

Of course these people you grew up with were Mestizo and not Native Americans. I see how one could long for the days of human sacrifice, no medical care, frequent famine, absolute rulers and the very real chance that they might wind up with their heads rolling down a pyramid. Sound so lovely and bucolic I can see why they hated the Spanish.

[Pants-of-dog]

Of course these people you grew up with were Mestizo and not Native Americans. I see how one could long for the days of human sacrifice, no medical care, frequent famine, absolute rulers and the very real chance that they might wind up with their heads rolling down a pyramid. Sound so lovely and bucolic I can see why they hated the Spanish.

This has nothing to do with our discussion.

I am discussing US imperialism in Latin America since the end of WWII.

http://www.globallearning-cuba.com/blog ... ca-1963-76

With the impossibility of the reforms of the neocolonial system proposed by the Kennedy administration (see “The Alliance for Progress” 9/26/2013), US policy toward Latin America under Presidents Lyndon Johnson (1963-68), Richard Nixon (1969-74), and Gerald Ford (1974-76) abandoned efforts at economic reform of the neocolonial system. They returned to interventionism, alliance with the Latin American estate bourgeoisie, and support of military dictatorships, in reaction to the intensity of anti-imperialist popular movements that pervaded the region during the 1960s and 1970s.

During the Johnson administration, the United States intervened militarily in Panama in 1964 and in the Dominican Republic in 1965. It supported coups d’état in Brazil(1964), Bolivia(1964), and Argentina(1966). It provided economic and military assistance to governments that were participating in the US counterinsurgency strategy in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, and Uruguay (Regalado 2007:143).

The Latin American dictatorships of the period followed an approach first adopted in Cuba during the 1930s with Batista. They were based on the development of the military as an institution and the strengthening of its capacity to control the population through repression. They were different from “strong-arm or caudillista dictatorships” (Regalado 2007:143) that had been the norm to the 1960s, which were characterized by personal rather than institutional control. The new type of institutional military dictatorship was more able to carry out repression, and violations of human rights became systematic and widespread. “The repression unleashed by these dictatorships was not limited to the annihilation of revolutionary organizations that developed armed struggle, but in fact extended to the destruction of left-wing political parties and social organizations, and in many cases, also center and right-wing formations. This is understandable because the aim was not only to banish the ‘threat of communism,’ but also to use such dictatorships to wipe out the remains of developmentalism and its political expression, populism” (Regalado 2007:144).

Like the Johnson administration, the Nixon administration supported the institutional military dictatorships and, when necessary, intervened to establish them. “In response to the rise in nationalist and revolutionary currents in Latin America, the policy of the Nixon administration was to destabilize and overthrow governments that it considered a threat to the‘national interest’ of the United States, and to install new dictatorships, such as the governments resulting from the coup d’état that overthrew General Juan José Torres in Bolivia (August 1971); the in-house coup of Juan María Bordaberry in Uruguay (June 1973); and, in particular, the coup d’état in Chile on September 11, 1973, against Salvador Allende’s constitutional government”(Regalado 2007:147).

US support for institutional military dictatorships was integral to the neocolonial world-system. The structures of the core-peripheral relation promoted the underdevelopment of Latin America, thus generating popular anti-imperialist movements, which could lead to a national project of autonomous development designed to break the neocolonial core-peripheral relation. Repression was necessary to preserve the neocolonial system.

[Tainari88]

@Drlee Dr the discussion is about intervention and imperialistic wars sponsored by the USA in Latin America not ancient Mesoamerican religious practices.

Is it so difficult to admit that the USA acted badly in many ways regarding its false belief that they had a right to determine other nations political choices? Why is that so hard for you to admit?

[QatzelOk]

The people who believe that imperialism is wrong are generally not those suffering under a repressive regime.

No, these assholes cross the line when they become apologists for corrupt and oppressive regimes in the name of anti-imperialism.

Um, other countries are allowed to find themselves with imperfect governance. The USA has imperfect governance, but no one is going to destroy the USA's infrastructure in order to "help."

Their stupid bullshit only serves to discredit the entire movement and makes it that much harder for serious people to make the case against imperialism.

Superman sees imperfect family settings, and so he changes into his cape and saves everyone from evil.
This is NOT a good foreign policy for truly "serious" people.

You are saying that, because other nations are so flawed, the USA (or France, or the USSR, or the Taliban) occasionally has to get in there and save people from evil.

But this way of thinking is exactly the problem. Our concepts of "evil other nations that need our help" have been constructed in ways that you can explore in the Propaganda, Facts and Fake News thread. (facts are the worst of the three)

No nation deserves to have your knife inserted into its belly "to help."

[Tainari88]

Double post please delete!

[Tainari88]

@QatzelOk --Q you said a lot in a few paragraphs. How I have missed your writing!

Have you ever read Salman Rushdie's "The Jaguar Smiles"?

There is a lot to learn from the unaligned nations. Siempre.

[blackjack21]

Is it so difficult to admit that the USA acted badly in many ways regarding its false belief that they had a right to determine other nations political choices? Why is that so hard for you to admit?

That's not quite what was going on. The Soviet Union was interested in installing its own satellite and using Nicaragua as a base for long-range bombers to be able to hit Southern US cities like San Diego, Houston or Pensacola--home of the Pacific Fleet, major oil port and major Naval Air Station respectively. Is it so difficult to understand that allying with a hostile power to the United States would likely arouse unfriendly moves from the United States?