Daniel Ortega is a pig. And for women of child bearing age Nicaragua sucks.

[cali]

This is from an excellent article about Ortega and what an opportunistic, sell out, son of a bitch he is. For political advantage, he allied himself with the most right wing anti-women elements of the Catholic Church.

<snip>

Ortega endorsed a proposed ban on "therapeutic abortions," or abortions to save the life of the mother. A week after this loophole (established by Nicaragua's government more than a century ago) was closed by the government of then-President Enrique Bolanos, a pregnant 18-year-old woman named Jazmina Bojorge checked into a Managua hospital with a fever and abdominal pain. Two days later, after being refused an abortion, she and her fetus were dead.

<snip>

read the whole article which was published in 2007.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/blumenthal

[BlooInBloo]

1. Yup - pretty shitty. Too bad Obama doesn't get to choose the world leaders he deals with.

[cali]

4. I'm not saying he shouldn't deal with him

I'm just trying to keep things from going down the memory hole. And stop revisionist history from winning the day.

[Captain Hilts]

2. He's always been a total creep. Sad. nt

[denem]

3. Wow: Must be more a fanatical Catholic than 'Communist'.

If only Ronnie had known! Then again the NSDAP were strongly anti-abortion for the Volk.

[cali]

5. he's fanatically pro- Daniel Ortega

The former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was a defender of Nicaragua's limited abortion rights and a critic of the Catholic church when he led a left-wing Nicaraguan government in the 1980s.

He has since been reconciled with the church and has become a strident opponent of abortion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6161396.stm

[Solomon]

6. But how else would it begin to change if no encounters

with reasonable men?

[Vidar]

7. Sorry to hear this about Ortega.

[cali]

8. I think some here choose to believe that all the left leaders

in SA are wonderful leaders of the people. Ortega certainly isn't.

[frazzled]

9. A lot of folks on the left invested a lot of energy in supporting him back in the day

This is why those of us who have learned from the lessons of our own lifetimes are sometimes feign to dip our feet too deeply into the ideological waters: I remember being a great Mao fan, and only later lived to regret my naivete.

I recommend highly the film by Susan Meiselas (with Dick Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti) titled "Pictures from a Revolution." Meiselas was a Magnum photographer who spent a decade or so in Nicaragua documenting the Sandinista movement: incredible photographs (published in the 1981 book "Nicaragua."). She returned ten years later to film the people and places again, and the results were not always happy. And the left was not happy with that film at the time either... but it was a brave and honest assessment of the disappointment that the Nicaraguan people had in the leadership they had fought so desperately to install. Their lives were no better. Maybe worse.

You can buy a copy on Amazon.

[FrenchieCat]

10. He's one of the least popular leader in his own country......

down to 35 percent...according to this poll: http://worldmeets.us/eltiempo000061.shtml

[MADem]

11. Uh oh....

Where are his cheerleaders? I'm surprised they aren't here by now, calling you names, demanding that we all wear sackcloth and ashes for the excesses of those we never voted for, and insisting that your version of events is somehow false, and that the little asswipe was just a "misunderstood" freedom fighter?

I'm not a fan of Fox, but the headline on this article sounds about right: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/18/obama-endures-ortega-diatribe/

Obama Endures Ortega Diatribe

The money quote:


Later, at a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama held his tongue when asked what he thought about Ortega's speech.

"It was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought."

[cali]

12. I was once a big Ortega supporter

I was wrong. And I suppose those who support him don't really have an argument that would hold water.

[MADem]

13. Probably why they're scarce hereabouts! nt

[cali]

14. kick for those who don't know how dire this is.