Bulletins and News Discussion from September 9th to September 15th, 2024 - Viva Sandino! - COTW: Nicaragua

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It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.

He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.

While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Nicaragua! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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the debate, especially the parting words, was a fantastic demonstration of the two ways that the American political class as well as citizenry is responding to its decaying empire:
denying it as hard as possible and demanding that people disbelieve their lying eyes; everything is fine and if it's not fine, it was because of Trump
admitting to it but flailing around trying to blame everybody but themselves; everything is bad but if we oppress powerless minorities hard enough, things will get better
simultaneously hilarious and depressing
- Harris kept trying to outflank Trump from the right which lead to some incredibly weird moments. Harris said some racist stuff about immigrants making fentanyl and killing US citizens, so Trump decided that he had to one up her on the racism scale and said that immigrants were eating people's cats and dogs in response. Just a competition on who is more racist, with non-factual claims.
  Though Harris decisively beat Trump on abortion. There was no contest there, Trump said some deranged stuff about executing babies and post term abortions. Though Trump did bring up how the democrats kept on playing young people for fools with policies that they have no intention of actually passing.
  On Ukraine, Harris kept trying to outflank Trump with hawkish neocon rhetoric, but Trump stood firm with a pro cessation of hostilities stance (which I believe he has no intention of actually achieving, but anyways), and even warned about the dangers of nuclear weapons when Harris brought up Russia invading Poland in the future, in some neocon fueled fantasy she had where Putin is a madman that invades NATO members.
  On Palestine there was no clear winner, both candidates sucked terribly, and Harris brought up debunked racist remarks about Palestinian men committing sexual assault. Trump proceeded to state that Harris hated Israel somehow, which led to Harris trying to outflank him from the right by proclaiming her undying love for Israel that she's had all her life.

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