carpot@violet.berkeley.edu (Tom Slone [(415)486-5954]) (02/23/86)
In article <7801001@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > >[michael@ucbjade] >/* ---------- "Re: (Fellow-)Travelers" ---------- */ >>I disagree. Nicaragua is different. >> 1) Nicaragua has had pluralistic democratic elections (certified by >>independent international organizations). > >Credible organizations ? Warsaw Pact is an international organi- >zation, too... Anyway, I'm not sure it is relevant to the par- >ticular topic of discussion. Yes, Amnesty International, America's Watch, and those "liberal" congressional representatives who observed Nicaragua's election are all commie fronts or commie dupes :=). It is relevent. As damn relevent as it can get, for the real issue is national sovereignty, a national sovereignty which the United States is trying to violate. Genuine elections mean that the people in the country in question are stating the form of government that they want. >Much of the economy is privately "owned"; but it is government >controlled. The same was true of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy >(totalitarian countries). The same was true of the USSR in the >20's; and is now true of China, Yugoslavia, Poland (Communist >countries). The same could be said of the United States today, with government bailouts of corporations, massive regulation of industries, and the dominance of the largely uncompetitive military-industrial sector of the economy. > >Nicaragua is *communist* in the sense that the ruling party is >Leninist. It is Leninist in three senses: (1) it says it is and >derives its goals from that tradition; (2) it is built on the Le- >ninist model (in particular, no factions are allowed); and (3) it >is part of an international community of Communist ruling par- >ties: what is called in the USSR, "the Socialist camp". This is a peculiar statement for two reasons: (1) if one agrees that the Sandinistas are Leninist, then there are three separate, competing communist parties in Nicaragua -- the other two being the MAP-ML (Popular Action Movement - Marxist-Leninist and the Communist Party of Nicaragua). (2) Nicaragua has some strange international bedfellows, to whit: Nicaragua has massive (for Nicargua) trade with Japan and Western Europe, and Nicaragua trades with and recognizes the Republic of China, but not the People's Republic of China. >Nicaragua is *totalitarian* in the sense that its political ar- >chitecture is. That is, the system of institutions in which real >power resides is built on the totalitarian model: >--the secret police responsible only to it; Compare this to the CIA, FBI, NSA's secretiveness and Congress' historyic inability to control them. >--ideologized armed forces; I would venture to guess that the vast majority of people in the U.S. armed forces are Republican Reaganites. >--the pervasive, state-funded propaganda machine; The White House and the CIA have historically been great sources of disinformation. >--the omnipresent surveillance; This is a baldassed lie. While in Managua, I roamed the streets and buses freely and it was quite obvious that I was not being watched. Besides, Nicaragua has far more vital things to do than to spy on itself, namely to fight the Contra/thugs. >--the task of transforming society declared a national goal; Do New Deal, Square Deal, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," and Great Society, sound familiar? In a country which has been historically plagued by poverty, corruption at the highest levels of government (i.e. the reign of the Somozas), and natural disasters, wouldn't it be virtuous to transform society? >--official manicheism: the nation declared an armed camp besieged > by forces of darkness; Sure Nicaragua is paranoid, but wouldn't you be if armed guerrillas were on the Canadian and Mexican boarders, whose skirmishes into the U.S. were being financed by a massively wealthy third party?
myers@uwmacc.UUCP (02/24/86)
> Nicaragua has massive (for > Nicargua) trade with Japan and Western Europe, and Nicaragua trades with and > recognizes the Republic of China, but not the People's Republic of China. No longer true. Nicaragua just recently recognized the PRC and repudiated relations with Taiwan.