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The Troika of Tyranny: The Imperialist Project in Latin America and Its Epigones

November 7, 2018

The Troika of Tyranny: The Imperialist Project in Latin America and Its Epigones

Photo Source vaticanus | CC BY 2.0

Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are today threatened by US imperialism. The first salvo of the modern Age of Imperialism started back in 1898 when the US seized Cuba along with Puerto Rico and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War.

The Age of Imperialism, as Lenin observed, is characterized by the competition of the various imperial powers for dominance. That inter-imperialist rivalry led to World War I. Lenin called those putative socialists who supported their own national imperialist projects “social imperialists.” Social imperialism is a tendency that is socialist in name and imperialist in deed. Imperialism and its social imperialist minions are still with us today.

US Emerges as the World’s Hegemon

The United States emerged after World War II as the leading imperialist power. With the implosion of the Socialist Bloc around 1991, US hegemony became even more consolidated. Today the US is the undisputed world’s hegemon.

Hegemony means to rule but even more so to dominate. As the world’s hegemon, the US will not tolerate neutral parties, let alone hostile ones. As articulated in the Bush Doctrine, the US will try to asphyxiate any nascent counter-hegemonic project, no matter how insignificant.

In the Caribbean, for instance, the US snuffed out the leftist government of Grenada in 1983 in what was code named Operation Urgent Fury. Grenada has a population smaller than Vacaville, California.

The only powers that the world’s hegemon will tolerate are junior partners such as Colombia in Latin America. The junior partner must accept a neoliberal economic regime designed to serve the interests of capital. Structural adjustment of the economy is demanded such that the neoliberal “reforms” become irreversible; so that you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nicaraguan President Blasts US Foreign Policy: Forget “Normal Relations, US Demands Total Submission, Even Servility”

August 8, 2018

Nicaraguan President Blasts US Foreign Policy: Forget “Normal Relations, US Demands Total Submission, Even Servility”

Yet another world nation appears to be joining the anti-hegemonic order…

US foreign policy is based on expansionism and oppression, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua told RT Spanish, adding that those countries that refuse to submit to Washington’s will are demonized and destabilized.

“We have always wanted to have normal relations with the US but we see only aggression in return,” Ortega said in an exclusive interview with RT Spanish. 

He believes Washington clearly does not need good relations, as it constantly “attacks” the Nicaraguan government. Ortega added that the US demands “submission, even servility,” while trampling on those who refuse to bow to Washington’s will.

As RT notes, the US has long sought to absorb Nicaragua into its sphere of influence, even resorting to a direct military occupation in the early 20th century, the president explained.

“Washington’s expansionist culture” apparently makes the US unable and unwilling to forgive the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) for the fact that it overthrew the last Nicaraguan dictator that was supported by the US, said Ortega.

Additionally, just as we have seen throughout Europe, Ortega points out that Washington actively pushes its “human rights agenda” through various NGOs as well as directly through its embassy in Managua in an attempt to present the Latin American state as a country “lacking democracy.”

“The activities of all those ‘human rights commissions’ has long turned into business,” he said.

Ortega’s remarks came as his country copes with months-long civil unrest, which began as student demonstrations over the government’s failure to handle forest fires in one of the most protected areas of the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve last April. Tensions increased further as the FSLN government announced unpopular welfare reforms.

On the bright side, at least Ortega has not been the victim of a drone assassination attempt.

The US’s Fingerprints Are All Over Nicaragua’s Bloody Civil Unrest

June 6, 2018

The US’s Fingerprints Are All Over Nicaragua’s Bloody Civil Unrest

Bloody protests against Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega’s government have the United State’s fingerprints all over it.  Over 100 people have been killed since the civil unrest broke out in mid-April and it doesn’t take much to realize the US government is fueling the bloodbath.

According to RT, the so-called marea rosa, or “pink tide”, of allied leftist governmentswhich held sway across Latin America in previous years is being rolled back. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff was removed from power in a right-wing coup, co-conspirators of which have now managed to imprison the current presidential frontrunner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno has stabbed his former leader Rafael Correa in the back by barring him from seeking re-election, while seemingly purging his cabinet of remaining Correa loyalists and beginning the process of allowing the US military back into the country. 

These are all coalescing as other democratic and not-so-democratic removals of leftist governments from power continue. NATO has nabbed itself a foothold in the Latin American region, now that Colombia has joined the obsolete yet aggressively expanding Cold War alliance, in a thinly veiled threat to neighboring authoritarian Venezuela.

Now it’s Nicaragua’s turn for the US to interfere in the government’s efforts to “police the entire world,” paid with by our stolen tax money, of course. Student demonstrations began in the capital Managua as a reaction to the country’s failure to handle forest fires in one of the most protected areas of the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve. The situation was then exacerbated when, two days later, the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front announced it was slashing pensions and social security payments, sparking further anti-government protests. Targeted opposition violence along with police repressions have led to a mounting body count on both sides.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Nicaragua Canal: A Giant Project With Huge Environmental Costs

May 16, 2015

Nicaragua Canal: A Giant Project With Huge Environmental Costs

Work has already begun on a $50 billion inter-ocean canal in Nicaragua that would cut through nature reserves and bring massive dredging and major ship traffic to Central America’s largest lake. Scientists and conservationists are warning that the project is an environmental disaster in the making. 

In a scenic lagoon on Nicaragua’s Brito River, less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean, schoolteacher Jorge Lopez and a friend were fishing on a recent morning. He gestured toward a bend in the narrow river, canopied with arching trees draped in moss, and said, “There are howler monkeys, crocodiles, and parrots all along this waterway. It would be a shame to lose all this.”

What threatens this tranquil spot and many others in Nicaragua is a controversial and wildly ambitious project to build a 173-mile canal — more than three times the length of the Panama Canal — that would connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via the Caribbean Sea. The $50 billion canal project is the brainchild of Chinese businessman Wang Jing and has the full support of the Nicaraguan government, which claims that the canal will give a huge boost to the country’s economy, the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti.

Many Nicaraguans back the canal project, and preliminary work has already begun — even before the completion of an environmental impact assessment. But other Nicaraguans, as well as local and international scientists, say the canal would be an environmental catastrophe, threatening a host of ecosystems across the country. They say it would also displace tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, including indigenous people whose territories the canal would cross.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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