Socialist Daniel Ortega’s fourth consecutive term as president of The Republic of Nicaragua (they had to change the constitution there twice) got off to a bad start with student protests in April that have only escalated and lead to police firing on them. With the death count into the hundreds and condemnation of Ortega’s strong arm tactics by Amnesty International, Nicaragua’s Sandinista dominated parliament passed two measure this week making it all but illegal oppose the government.
In a further effort to quell unrest, armed pro-government civilians and national police forces descended yesterday on the “Monimbo neighbourhood in the city of Masaya, about 26 km southeast of the capital, Managua, before dawn.”
This is the same neighborhood that lead the fight against Somoza and handed the nation over to Oretaga’s Sandinista’s forty years ago. More
Aw.
I assume Commander Zero (Eden Pastora) is now dead and no longer a threat?
This guy should have been killed when they ousted him 30 years ago.
Kinder, gentler, my ass.
izlamo delenda est …
The political agenda of Bernie Sanders and the Democrat Party in Action.
He’s president and his wife is vice president. That explains billary clinton
Off topic. But an interesting story about – how Banana Republic – entered our vocabulary.
I am reading The Lost City of the Monkey God. (aka the Lost White City) In the chapter, “the fish that swallowed the whale” (a phrase coined by the NY Times for Sam Zemurray) – is a thumbnail history describing a version of how we got the term – Banana Republic.
Credit goes to Samuel Zemurray, a Russian immigrant, who was PO’d at US Sec. of State, Philander Knox, and his scheme with JP Morgan in 1910 that would have killed his banana business in Honduras. And decided to kick Knox’s, JP Morgan’s and the US government’s backsides.
It all started in 1873, when Jules Verne’s novel “Around the World in 80 Days”, generated the desire for bananas in the USA. The Spanish had brought bananas to Honduras from Asia, but bananas were little known here at that time.
Following the popularity of the novel creating a demand for bananas in 1885 Andrew Preston started the Boston Fruit Co. Zemurray in Mobile, Ala. seeing the banana shipments coming in to Mobile decided to get in on the action becoming Sam the Banana Man selling bananas Boston Fruit was going to discard due to being to ripe. Quickly earning enough cash to create the Cuyamel Fruit Co.
The Honduran government, as they all do, spent more money than it had, and couldn’t pay their British creditors. Who were threatening to invade Honduras. POTUS Taft wanted no British or any other European influence in C. America, and give the task to SoS Knox to fix it.
Knox teamed up with JP Morgan to buy the British debt. Under the deal Morgan made with the new Honduran government Morgan’s agents would operate the customs houses in Honduras and collect taxes on the bananas.
Zemurry had previously worked out a network of tax free deals with the previous Honduran government. Having to pay high taxes to Morgan’s agents was a huge burden which would have driven him out of business.
Zemurray petitioned Knox for relief, which Knox refused to do. Knox lectured Zemurray like a zealous crusader telling him he ought to do his part to aid the fine banker Morgan make money for the country. Zemurray was PO’d enough after the meeting with Knox that he sent a detail of secret service agents to tail Zemurray.
Zemurray decided to fix Knox’s and Morgan’s wagon by overthrowing the government that had made the deal with Knox & JP Morgan. He recruited mercenaries, purchased arms, heated up the press against Morgan & the new government, and smuggled the previous head of Honduran government, Bonilla, back into the country and accomplished his goal.
Cuyamel Fruit Co and Boston Fruit Co eventually merged in 1930 to become United Fruit. After it’s business started to fail, in 1933, the chairman & the board refused Zemurray’s advice on how to return the company to profitability, insulting Zemurray in the process. Probably driven by prejudice against the Jewish Zemurray. Zemurray again outfoxed the arrogant, and managed to fire all of them, and restored the business.
That seems to be the first of many overthrows of various governments in C. America that gave rise to the phrase. The legacy of all that followed are corrupt governments, drug cartels, MS-13, misery for the citizens, and all the rest.
Oh, and if you thought Walmart mostly sells Chinese products. Maybe not. According to the book bananas are consistently the top selling product at Walmart.
I believe our incursions into Central America in the early 1900s were referred to as the “Banana Wars.”
We also impelled Panama to secede from Columbia so that we could build the Canal (which Jimmy Carter, another treasonous, hate-America political hack (like Obola), gave away).
izlamo delenda est …