Who Was Naive About Bernie Sanders Meeting the Sandinistas?

[Uncle Joe]

On December 4, 1984, a dump truck carrying volunteer government coffee pickers was ambushed in northern Nicaragua. The attackers, rebel soldiers known as Contras, ripped through the truck with machine-gun fire and grenades, and they fired a rocket launcher into its tires. When the truck rattled to a stop, the Contras climbed aboard. They opened fire into the mangle of the living and dead, and stabbed those still moving with their bayonets—setting aside a 19-year-old woman to kidnap. Then they set the truck on fire. Roger Briones, a coffee picker who had fallen out and survived by playing dead, later testified: “I could hear the cries and laments of those who were burning alive.”

(snip)

In 1979, leftist revolutionaries overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the West Point–educated scion of a repressive family dynasty that had been in power since 1936. Some of the new leaders called themselves “Sandinistas,” in honor of Augusto Sandino, an early-20th-century revolutionary who’d fought against the 1912-33 US military occupation of Nicaragua and was assassinated on Somoza’s grandfather’s orders.

(snip)

Initially, the Sandinistas had tried to establish a good relationship with the United States. But Ronald Reagan had won the presidency in 1980 in part on the basis of his promise to reject Jimmy Carter’s human rights–centered approach to foreign policy, and instead be more “assertive”—to use the Times’ word—especially when it came to communism.

(snip)

Abrams was pardoned by a lame-duck George H.W. Bush, who himself had been involved in supporting death squads as CIA director and was tangled up in Iran-Contra itself. Those pardons were underwritten by Bush’s attorney general, William Barr. Abrams is now Trump’s point man on the Venezuela crisis. Barr is now Trump’s attorney general—apparently hired to help to cover up the president’s many crimes, just as he did for Bush decades ago.

(snip)

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/who-was-naive-about-bernie-sanders-meeting-the-sandinistas/

This is a good read.

[rampartc]

1. meeting with the victims of our propaganda and repression

is the only way to gather facts.

note that those coffee pickers who were massacred were not doing anything except picking beans to feed their families.

[George II]

5. "Bernie wasn't the only US politician who visited Nicaragua"...

There may be a reason for that. But his "fact-finding mission" was finding facts from only one side of the conflict. Plus, we have to remember that at the time he was only the mayor of a very small New England town, not a "US politician", and he knew little more than the two journalists ("journalists" ) that criticized him.

We also have to keep in mind that around the same time Sanders was praising the government of Fidel Castro.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Believing

Believing the United States shouldn't meddle in other nations affairs and that totalitarianism/authoritarianism is the worst way to organize a government are not mutually exclusive.

[Uncle Joe]

4. The sad history of the United States in Central America

and elsewhere has been to meddle in other nations' affairs and support totalitarianism/authoritarianism so long as our corporations and oligarchs are happy.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

https://fas.org/man/smedley.htm

[Uncle Joe]

7. Chanting is one thing, but the for the better part of the 20th century the

actual killing was committed and supported by the United States against Nicaragua, not the other way around.

To my knowledge Nicaragua has not invaded the first state but we most certainly have been there.

To my point of view you're trying to spin that.

Sure supporting brutal dictators in a small third world nation is perfectly fine as is supporting murderous nun killing thugs just so our corporations and oligarchs can all but enslave their people and make oodles of blood money.

However if said suppressed people chant in anger at decades of being victimized and oppressed, that's a major no no, they should just suck it up and say "thank you sir can we have another one!

I don't even believe you read the article, probably couldn't be bothered because your mind was already made up by a soundbite.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Well if most Americans are so lazy minded that facts and history mean nothing

and the conflict of interest laden corporate media conglomerates get their way, you may be right.

However if that's the case; Trump is only the beginning of much worse to come along.

So the way I see it, we can cave in to cynicism and head on down the merry path to perdition or we can fight it at every turn and truly transform our nation and the world for the better, you make your own choice but I'm doing the latter.

[LongtimeAZDem]

10. Enjoy!