Latin American elections are Reagan-era redux with a twist

by Tom Gallagher on Nov. 08, 2011

While North Americans head to the polls today, national elections took place this past Sunday in both Nicaragua and Guatemala.

The victors, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Otto Perez Molina in Guatemala, are different men than they were years ago.

Today, Bloomberg offers this editorial on the elections:

"The results of presidential elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala on Sunday -- won, respectively, by a leftist revolutionary and a right-wing military man -- could almost lead one to think we’re back in the Reagan era.

Well, yes and no. Some of the characters are the same, but the roles are reversed. Former liberators are turning into tyrants; once-threatening militaries have become potential rescuers."

Bloomberg's wrong, of course,

Submitted by Charles J Scanlon (not verified) on Nov. 08, 2011.

Bloomberg's wrong, of course, but thanks for noticing.

Next up, Newt breaks out his speeches from the eighties calling to nuke Nicaragua for electing, once again Daniel Ortega.

Worst thing he has done is caving in to his old nemesis, the awful Cardinal Obando y Bravo and criminalizing women and doctors, including bringing spontaneous miscarriage under suspicion.

But hey, he got re-elected by an enormous margin that makes our hair splitting elections look more than shady (bush 20o0 and bush 2004), what, like two thirds of the vote.

Meanwhile a genocidal general in Guatemala gets elected, part of Rios Montt's program to wipe the Mayan descendents out of their mountains under suspicion of communism for sharing hoes and working together planting and harvesting, innocent families who had never heard of Karl Marx but always planted this way, whole language groups rubbed out like the US Calvary in the Old West, driving hundreds of thousands more to Los Angeles to survive, and this is good news, for Bloomberg. Good for international, imperialist business, I guess . . .

But it certainyl gives Daniel another mandate, as when first freely elected back in 1984, which did not stop Newt and Ollie North and the other Catholics from invading Nicaragua unprovoked for no reason.

yet the propaganda machine cranks up already . . .

Found any WMD's yet?

further proof that, bankrupt

Submitted by Charles J Scanlon (not verified) on Nov. 08, 2011.

further proof that, bankrupt (financially and morally) from our unjust invasions of Iraq and the Afghan (jump starting there our profitable poppy harvest after its decimation under the Taliban) yet requiring as always in our history the profits of war for our economy to function at all, we turn our eyes sothwards, having prepped Mexico after years of internal violence by Calderon against the Mexican poor, and now turning our eyes further south to invade Nicaragua once more. While she has no oil, it is a step to invading Venezuela, which does, and who will not stand idly by while we roll our humvees through Managua, and so our war profits increase immeasurably.

I can just hear Newt howling now for war.
again.

HERE IS THE REPORT FROM A FAR

Submitted by Charles J Scanlon (not verified) on Nov. 08, 2011.

HERE IS THE REPORT FROM A FAR MORE FACTUAL AND RELIABLE SOURCE THAN BLOOMBERG (omg!!). This in from Reuters via the irishtimes.com and presents the facts not the Republican fantasies and fairy tales.

from the irishtimes.com

Ortega cruises to landslide victory in Nicaragua

MANAGUA – Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega cruised to a landslide re-election victory after attracting broad support for his anti-poverty programmes.

Mr Ortega had 62.7 per cent of the vote with returns in from 86 per cent of polling stations in Sunday’s presidential election.

That was more than double the tally for his closest rival, conservative radio personality Fabio Gadea.

Mr Ortega’s supporters poured into the streets of Managua to celebrate. “I’m happy ... I think that people are convinced, they voted for social programmes, voted for the future, voted for the poor,” said lawyer Silvia Calderon (54).

Mr Gadea refused to accept the results and accused Mr Ortega of fraud, but international election observers said voting irregularities had not changed the final result.

The huge victory margin is a personal triumph for a man who was for long a divisive figure – popular among his Sandinista party’s supporters but distrusted by many and despised by business leaders because of economic chaos during his first term as president in the 1980s.

Mr Ortega (65) has moderated some of his socialist policies since winning back the presidency five years ago and has won praise for not molesting private businesses.

Helped by financial support from Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, Mr Ortega has put money into health and education programmes, provided loans for small businesses and given aid to farmers. – (Reuters)

Thanks Charlie for going to

Submitted by Justiniano de Managua (not verified) on Nov. 09, 2011.

Thanks Charlie for going to bat for us poor stupid Nicaraguans as this Bloomberger guy callls us when he writes: “If only Nicaraguan voters shared their neighbors’ wisdom.”
And a special abrazo for digging up and posting “from Reuters via the irishtimes.com and presents the facts not the Republican fantasies and fairy tales.”
A close USA friend of mine sent me the following link to an article by Robert Callahan, who stepped out as USA Ambassador to us a couple months ago.
«www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-nicaragua-matters-to-the-united-states/2011/11/03/gIQACFOvjM_story.html»
I took the time and patience to critique the article and answered her with the following:

Thanks for the article from the Wash.Post. by Robert Callahan. We know him well, perhaps too well after his 3 year stint with us as USA. ambassador. He’s typical of the crop of USA ambassadors that have been shoved upon us ever since Ronald Reagan lost in what TIME magazine called “Reagan ‘s Dirty War Against Nicaragua.”

Callahan’s spin about “WE HAVE VALUES, AND AMONG THESE ARE FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS AND THE RULE OF LAW”, -- just ask our friend Jebb Bush and Florida about that little push that put George W. back in power. He questions Ortega’s relations with Cuba and Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi, the FARC of Colombia etc. and forgets that as F.D.Roosevelt said of our 45 years of Somoza dictatorship: “Somoza is a son of a bitch, but he’s our s.o.b.” And when Nicaragua finally threw out Somoza, against the wishes of the USA, we had to fight 10 years of war against the USA and Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom Fighters” financed (remember Col. North and his famous “Iran/Contra/Gate”) and trained by the USA, which cost us the lives of some 50.000 of our best young people and ruined our opportunity to re-engineer our country. And when the International Court adjudicated to Nicaragua some 37 million USA$$ in war-damages after Reagan’s illegal and unjust war, the USA simply walked away from that debt, since as Callahan noted so well, "Nicaragua has no military strength to worry about".

Callahan spins off about THE GREAT VALUES OF A FAIR DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM UP IN USA. Just ask Herman Cain in Florida how much he has to sweat to find funds when he has the Koch Brothers and Cia. funding him. Even Obama after scratching up $$ from the people for his first presidential campaign, now has to keep his nose clean and play footsie with the $$$ people in the USA to be able to run again for president. ¿How long is it now that US congress has been on “stale mate” because of the Republican $$ don’t want to let expire the Bush tax cuts for “the poor abandoned” millionaires?

And as for the famous “VALUES” Callahan touts, just ask the family of Osama ben Laden, or what´s left of the family of Mohamar Gadaffi over in Libya, or of the family of Chilean President Salvador Allende after 9/11/73, or ask the still alive favorite target of the CIA, Fidel Castro, or the five Cuban men arrested in Florida in 1998 who have been almost continually in solitary ever since without due process of the law and more or less all hushed up from the USA press.

While with us in Nicaragua, Callahan tried continually but failed to consolidate the splintered and fragmented opposition to the Sandinist Government, so yesterday in our presidential elections, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinist Party won the election with 63% of the votes, despite Callahan’s USA $$ and valiant personal efforts.

Have you read some any of the Wiki-leaks from Calllahan’s stint here as ambassador? Obviously it was high time for him to retire from “diplomatic service” and start writing articles and probably his “memoirs” which ought to prove “interesting”.

I share this with you Charlie in thanks for helping to bring about that “other possible society”, that “other possible world” that we both believe in and for which that slob prophet from Nazareth was born, lived, was assassinated, arose from the dead and continues alive amongst us as we pray: “Abbá, Father thy Kingdom come here on earth just as it is in heaven.”

Paz,

Justiniano de Managua el 9 de nov. 2011

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