Somoza was a prick. The Sandinistas, despite their big talk, turned out to be pricks. The Contras, by and large, were also pricks. Such is, of course, politics, and, more to the point, such is Latin American politics.
Your larger point was the most salient one, I believe. The people of Latin America in general, and in this case, Nicaragua, in particular, were struggling to throw off the legacies of centuries of colonialism, and colonial-type governments.
Their default mode wasn't British mercantilism, nor German trade unionism, nor anything else we could find recognizable. Their default mode was medieval Spain and precolumbian Indian culture ~ no wonder they found Marxism to be advanced. To them, it was. At least Marxism had a spiritually advanced ideology.
Now, what is there? The United States, the most advanced country in the world, has an incredibly corrupt government. We used to be able to posture about the rule of law. Now, we can't even do that. |
