Narcissists are attracted to positions of power

[Belligerent Savant]

Wombaticus Rex has a sticky on his Twitter page that seems apt and might contain a clue:

We keep electing sociopaths because what we want from our leaders is impossible and only liars would promise it to us

^^^^^^
Yes, but that assumes, at least in part, that there is a) consensus in The People's selection of a 'representative' and b) leadership selection is largely based on 'The People's collective voice, when increasingly, behind-the-scenes operators (power brokers, uber-lobbyists, domestic/foreign influencers, propagandists, et al.) are the primary drivers of outcomes, at least at the National level.

Edited to add: "what we want" is an interesting chicken/egg scenario, though: is 'what we want' conditioned/influenced by external factors (propaganda tactics/manipulations, etc), or is it a function of WHO WE ARE in our current stage of 'smart primate' evolution -- or perhaps a bit of both?

That aside, I'm in agreement with the overall premise that most capitalist-based systems inherently reward/incentivize narcissistic tendencies. It's practically a prerequisite for the pursuit, and eventual attainment, of any high profile/highly visible corporate/political 'leadership' position.

[Heaven Swan]

Elvis » Wed May 09, 2018 8:31 pm[/url]"Narcissim is a big problem, I agree. About all we can do about it, as HeavenSwan suggests, is be aware of it and adjust expectations accordingly.

I didn't say that.

Sorry; I took your word "intractable" out of context and associated it with the general consensus that narcissism is incurable. I've given it a lot of thought in the last ten years, and some study, and I think all we can do is be wary.

Wombaticus Rex has a sticky on his Twitter page that seems apt and might contain a clue:

We keep electing sociopaths because what we want from our leaders is impossible and only liars would promise it to us

Oh, I think we are saying the same thing then i.e. due to the currently intractable nature of pathological narcissism, in one on one relationships one's best and perhaps only option, short of remaining in the cycle of abuse, is no or low contact.

What I meant was that in this thread I'd like to not throw in the towel, but explore ideas for dealing with the serious problem of narcissists gravitating to leadership positions, where the damage they can do is amplified.

[Heaven Swan]

Wombaticus Rex has a sticky on his Twitter page that seems apt and might contain a clue:

We keep electing sociopaths because what we want from our leaders is impossible and only liars would promise it to us

^^^^^^
Yes, but that assumes, at least in part, that there is a) consensus in The People's selection of a 'representative' and b) leadership selection is largely based on 'The People's collective voice, when increasingly, behind-the-scenes operators (power brokers, uber-lobbyists, domestic/foreign influencers, propagandists, et al.) are the primary drivers of outcomes, at least at the National level.

Yes, I agree.
And this is a pet peeve of mine. I get so tired of these type of attitudes and comments (i.e We keep electing sociopaths because what we want from our leaders is impossible and only liars would promise it to us), which are, in practice, "blame the victim" turnaround silencing mechanisms. This one in particular implies that voters have x-ray vision to see through all the lies and false promises and are responsible for the rigged and broken electoral system.

The truth is that narcissists have no scruples and are diabolically crafty in presenting themselves as different than they really are.

The first step might be to launch some effective Narc Awareness campaigns to help the general public become aware of the nature of the problem and learn how to spot narcs and sociopaths (it's not impossible). That's one idea anyway....

That aside, I'm in agreement with the overall premise that most capitalist-based systems inherently reward/incentivize narcissistic tendencies. It's practically a prerequisite for the pursuit, and eventual attainment, of any high profile/highly visible corporate/political 'leadership' position.

This is an exaggeration. There are plenty of relatively healthy, non-pathologically narcissistic people with empathy and intact values who pursue, for example, corporate leadership positions because the pay is good and they have a family to support.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^^^^
Certainly. My wording focused on "high profile/highly visible" corporate (or political) leadership positions, which represents a distinct subcategory of the available spectrum of corporate/political positions one can seek to attain.
There can always be exceptions, of course, regardless of a position's 'stature'.

But not for National Elections. Warning: non-professional opinion:
I'd be hard-pressed to think of any U.S. President (or major party candidate for president) in recent memory that hasn't displayed 'Narc' tendencies, with Jimmy Carter as perhaps the only exception.

[Heaven Swan]

The crisis in Nicaragua, (and Venezuela?) with a former leftist revolutionary leader becoming ultra-corrupt and betraying the people and his ideals may be another example of a narcissist or psychopath obsessively seeking power and rising to the top.

Ideology is just not enough...


Nicaragua's Sandinista stronghold is a city 'at war' with the president

Daniel Ortega makes yearly pilgrimages to Masaya. But in the cradle of Sandinismo, residents demand his exit
Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips in Masaya

Thu 7 Jun 2018 06.54 EDT


The graffiti that covers signs and billboards on the road to the cradle of Sandinismo offer once unimaginable snubs to the movement’s most celebrated comandante: ‘Despot!’ ‘Murderer!’ ‘Get out Daniel!’ ‘Ortega you are dead!’

Masked rebels with homemade mortars guard more than a dozen roadblocks that now separate Nicaragua’s capital from Masaya, a storied revolutionary stronghold just 26km (16 miles) south, from which guerrillas launched their final assault on the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Almost four decades on from that momentous triumph, and with Nicaragua seemingly in the midst of another epochal upheaval, Masaya now has Daniel Ortega in its crosshairs.

“He’s been attacking the people, killing the people. Now the people want him out,” said one 20-year-old mutineer with a black mortar slung over his shoulder as he escorted the Guardian into the heart of the former Sandinista hotbed – now under almost total rebel control.

Masaya has long been a bastion of Sandinista rebellion and rule. Nicaragua’s septuagenarian president makes annual pilgrimages to the intensely symbolic town, where his brother, Camilo, died battling Somoza’s troops in 1978.

Today, Masaya is once again in full revolt – this time against the Sandinistas themselves.

“Daniel must go,” insisted Rosa Caballero, a 48-year-old hotel manager who said she supported the uprising even though the eruption of violence had paralyzed the town and scared away all her guests.

“I don’t think there is any way out,” the mother-of-three added. “All this repression. This whole struggle. It cannot be in vain ... I hope other cities join us so it is total pressure against the government.”

A masked protester shoots off his homemade mortar in the Monimbo neighborhood during clashes with police, in Masaya, Nicaragua.


A masked protester shoots off his homemade mortar in the Monimbo neighborhood during clashes with police, in Masaya, Nicaragua. Photograph: Esteban Felix/AP

Unrest began to grip Masaya on 19 April after protests broke out in the capital in response to planned social security reforms – then swelled into a broader, nationwide insurrection against what many call Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian and corrupt rule.
How a journalist's death live on air became a symbol of Nicaragua's crisis
Read more

But in recent days the violence – which has so far claimed almost 130 lives across the country – has escalated dramatically. At least 10 people were shot dead here over the weekend, allegedly by police and paramilitary gangs operating at the government’s behest.

“It was a bloodbath,” La Prensa, an opposition newspaper that has been documenting the carnage, reported of what it called two nights of terror. “Day and night, Masaya seems a city at war.”

MORE at
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... ega-masaya




Nicaragua's newest tycoon? 'Socialist' president Daniel Ortega.

Daniel Ortega's opaque business dealings, linked to Venezuela President Hugo Chávez, are blurring the lines between party, state, and first family, say critics.
By Tim Rogers, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor October 14, 2009

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/America ... -woam.html

Managua, Nicaragua — Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega doesn't talk like most successful businessmen. The former revolutionary leader is much more likely to rail against the evils of "savage capitalism" than he is to discuss his multi-million dollar business ventures.

Yet despite his rhetorical stance against the "failed imperialist model," Mr. Ortega and his inner circle of Sandinista confidants are quickly and quietly becoming the new masters of the impoverished country's economy.

Since returning to the presidency in 2007 – 17 years after being voted out of office at the end of the Sandinista revolution in 1990 – Ortega has created a network of private businesses that operate under the auspices of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), an opaque cooperation agreement of leftist countries bankrolled primarily by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
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Ortega's "ALBA businesses" – known by an alphabet soup of acronyms, including ALBANISA, ALBALINISA, and ALBACARUNA – have cornered Nicaragua's petroleum import and distribution markets, become the country's leading energy supplier and cattle exporter, turned profits on the sale of donated Russian buses, and purchased a hotel in downtown Managua, among other lucrative investment moves.
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While government secrecy has cast a long shadow over the business operations, the light that gets through reveals profits registering in the hundreds of millions of dollars, despite the economy's slip into recession.

In 2008, Nicaragua's Central Bank reported that Venezuela gave Nicaragua $457 million in aid, all of which was managed privately by Ortega's ALBA holdings, with no third-party oversight. ALBANISA, a joint Venezuelan-Nicaraguan oil company linked to Ortega, recently signed a 15-year energy contract expected to net the company upwards of $500 million, depending on price fluctuations. And last year's oil imports earned the ALBA group an additional $280 million in revenue, according to calculations by opposition leader and former Inter-American Development Bank analyst Edmundo Jarquín.

"Maybe Ortega isn't the richest man in the country, but he is making more than anyone else in Nicaragua," Mr. Jarquín said.

Blurring the line between state and first family?

Critics say President Ortega and the Sandinista Front have created a web of businesses operations that have blurred the distinction between party, state, and first family. For example, Ortega's personal confidant Francisco López is the treasurer of the Sandinista Front, as well as the president of the government-run Petronic petroleum company, the vice-president of the private-run ALBANISA, the president of ALALINISA, and the administration's representative to power-distributor Unión Fenosa, of which the Sandinista government recently purchased 16 percent. At this point, critics say, it's impossible to know whose interests he or his businesses represent.

"Wherever there is confusion or a conflict of interests between the state and the government, and the ruling party and the first family, the situation becomes corrupted," said former Attorney General Alberto Novoa, who spearheaded the anti-corruption campaign against former President Arnoldo Alemán, accused of bilking the country of $100 million during his turn in government. "The separation of state and party is an unfinished task in Nicaragua."

'Cuba-inspired model'

Untangling the web of business interests has been a difficult task.

Moises Martínez, an award-winning investigative journalist for the leading daily La Prensa, says the government secrecy of Nicaragua's "Cuban-inspired model" has made his two-year investigation of Ortega's ALBA business dealings "like trying to dig a tunnel with a hand shovel."

Despite being denied access to government sources and companies such as ALBANISA, journalists have uncovered a web of almost a dozen ALBA business holdings, which Martinez claims has made Ortega and his family one of the most important economic players in the country, on par with Nicaraguan business tycoon Carlos Pellas. "The difference," Martinez says; "is that it took the Pellas family 80 years to accumulate their wealth. Ortega has done it in two years."

Yet unlike most nouveau riche, Ortega and his Sandinista confidants – who first rose to economic power in 1990 during a $1.5 billion land grab known as the "piñata" – still identify as the poor and downtrodden. In fact, Ortega, who has had no other job in his life other than president, claims a net worth of only $200,000, according to his last declaration in 2006.

But Ortega failed to report any property or "piñata" holdings, including his personal compound, which he confiscated in the 1980s and is estimated to be worth around $1 million.

Tight-lipped Sandinistas

The Sandinista leadership is decidedly tight-lipped on the subject of its business dealings. Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, spokeswoman for the government, the president and the Sandinista Front, did not respond to the Christian Science Monitor's requests for an interview. And presidential adviser and economist Orlando Núñez also failed to return requests for comment.

President Ortega's brother, however, says the Sandinistas' new capitalist clout and economic rise to power is nothing to be ashamed of.

"If there is a free market, there needs to be a system in which people are free to get rich, so the poor can stop being poor, so the poor can become middle class and the middle class can become business owners and be better off," says retired Gen. Humberto Ortega, adding that the Sandinista revolution broke the economic stranglehold of a small ruling class and allowed the Sandinistas to become "new actors" in today's modern free-market economy, which he defends.

People shouldn't pay too much attention to the Sandinista government's anti-capitalist rhetoric, says General Ortega, because "one thing is discourse for the political clients, and another thing is what the reality shows you are doing."

[Elvis]

The crisis in Nicaragua, (and Venezuela?) with a former leftist revolutionary leader becoming ultra-corrupt and betraying the people and his ideals

I don't mean to dismiss your post or its intent, but I'm extremely wary of such stories dealing with leftist leaders in Central and South America. The propaganda against Hugo Chavez was a good lesson, where we had US media telling us, just for example, that "3,000 anti-Chavez protesters surrounded the palace" when they were actually pro-Chavez, or that "opposition newspapers are shut down" when actually they outnumber pro-Chavezista papers! The lies are often quite blatant, reversals of the truth, and without some digging it can be difficult to parse the facts.

Nicaragua and Ortega have been in US crosshairs since "Iran-Contra" (misnomer for Contra-cocaine deals but including the retention of US hostages in Iran) and I don't trust the "opposition newspapers" and what seem like cherry-picked quotes from more or less anonymous individuals.

Between the Guardian (alas) and the CS Monitor, CSM might be slightly more neutral on this subject, and I credit them for at least including, at the end, a rebuttal of sorts:

People shouldn't pay too much attention to the Sandinista government's anti-capitalist rhetoric, says General Ortega, because "one thing is discourse for the political clients, and another thing is what the reality shows you are doing."

[Heaven Swan]

Hi Elvis,

Are you disputing that hyper-inflation has caused the exodus of up to a million Venezuelans? Or that protesters all over Nicaragua are demanding that Daniel Ortega and his government step down? Or that the protesters that have taken over the university in Managua have been fired on by police?

Yesterday at work I spoke with a man who just came from Venezuela. These things are really happening.

The point of my post was this. I'm trying to go beyond a left vs right paradigm and explore the problem of pathologically selfish and corrupt people seeking and seizing positions of power and leadership under all political systems..


A Tale of Two Maracaibos: Venezuelans Flee in Unprecedented Numbers

https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2018/ ... d-numbers/

Workers Flee and Thieves Loot Venezuela’s Reeling Oil Giant

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/worl ... collection

June 14, 2018

EL TIGRE, Venezuela — Thousands of workers are fleeing Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, abandoning once-coveted jobs made worthless by the worst inflation in the world. And now the hemorrhaging is threatening the nation’s chances of overcoming its long economic collapse.

Desperate oil workers and criminals are also stripping the oil company of vital equipment, vehicles, pumps and copper wiring, carrying off whatever they can to make money. The double drain — of people and hardware — is further crippling a company that has been teetering for years yet remains the country’s most important source of income.

The timing could not be worse for Venezuela’s increasingly authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected last month in a vote that has been widely condemned by leaders across the hemisphere. Prominent opposition politicians were either barred from competing in the election, imprisoned or in exile.

But while Mr. Maduro has firm control over the country, Venezuela is on its knees economically, buckled by hyperinflation and a history of mismanagement. Widespread hunger, political strife, devastating shortages of medicine and an exodus of well over a million people in recent years have turned this country, once the economic envy of many of its neighbors, into a crisis that is spilling over international borders.


more @ link



Colombia and Brazil clamp down on borders as Venezuela crisis spurs exodus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... il-borders

Fri 9 Feb 2018 11.52 EST

Venezuela’s neighbours are tightening their borders, alarmed by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing hunger, hyperinflation and a spiralling political crisis.

Brazil and Colombia are sending extra troops to patrol frontier regions where Venezuelans have arrived in record numbers over recent months.

Colombia, which officially took in more than half a million Venezuelans over the last six months of 2017, also plans to make it harder to cross the frontier or stay illegally in Colombia. Brazil said it will shift refugees from regions near the border where social services are badly strained.

The economic crisis and food shortages which have driven so many from their homes show no signs of easing.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts hyperinflation in Venezuela will hit 13,000% this year, so most salaries are now worth the equivalent of just a few British pounds a month.

more @ link

[Elvis]

Hi HS,

I was pretty clear that "I don't mean to dismiss your post or its intent" but I'm extremely wary of NYTimes reports which have consistently misprepresented the situations with leftist leaders in Central and South America. As for the PDVSA, same thing; I won't go into the details here in this thread, but with the MSM histroy in these matters I'm afraid I don't trust their reporting and can't make characterizations of the leaders in question based on that reporting—it's just been too dodgy and dishonest.

I'm trying to go beyond a left vs right paradigm and explore the problem of pathologically selfish and corrupt people seeking and seizing positions of power and leadership under all political systems.

Yes, exactly, and it's a very worthy inquiry, but in this case I think the information we have from MSM on Western-hemisphere leftist leaders is too distorted to use as examples here, and can't really be separated from the real right/left struggle going on in those countries.

[Elvis]

So, just to explicate a little further, I don't find Maduro (especially) and Ortega to be prime examples to examine for power-hungry narcissism because we'd unfairly be trying to form a psychological profile using information skewed to make them look bad in the first place. Inflation in Venezuela, for example, is not a marker of clinical narcissism, or even plain stubborness; I find that other factors, chiefly economic sabotage, from within and without, and controlled shortages created by the big-money Venezuelan commercial cartels, create the problems (which can then be blamed on Maduro).


However, there are many leaders and others, particularly from the past, who are worth looking at, and about whom we know a great deal more. For instance, I've asked myself if Nixon was a narcissist (in the clinical sense), and I almost have to say "no" — although certainly elements of narcissism will nearly always play a role in political striving.

Napolean? I think so.
Hitler? Hmmmm...he's almost in a class of his own.

Which leads me to the exceptions, and how examining them may be useful. Of course Bernie Sanders comes to mind. He just doesn't seem to exhibit any narcissistic behaviors. Contrast his language with Trump's: Bernie says, "our revolution"; Trump says "only I can fix it."

Watching how they use language might offer indications, red flags.

[Harvey]

The first video below was made to debunk John Oliver's recent, erm, intervention on Venezuela but it's quite useful general viewing and clears up many common misconceptions very capably. When someone asks us to be exercised about Venezuela, enough to support more magic bean juice USA intervention, it's also useful to consider their role in the actual and ongoing genocide in Yemen, impossible without British & US bombs, planes, bullets, expertise, personnel and political & media support* which will probably kill two or three times as many people as the holocaust before it's over.**

I largely agree with Abby Martin's take, Venezuelan oil reserves, the largest remaining in the world, as the explanation for American anguish over it's current and previous leadership, especially in relation to the relative equanimity over their contemporary participation in actual genocide.

Others have noted the similarities between Nicaragua and the removal of Mossadegh, and some of the resultant ironies.



Worth watching WRT to the current thread, featuring at least two cultures which had been directly observed to be without narcissism as such. The film also points toward what may be some of the reasons why. I hope it's useful, probably old ground for many here:



*Media discussion of what is happening in Yemen without description of who, how and why it is happening, is absolutely direct support.

** Which makes the Rwandan effort look rather crude and amateurish by comparison.

[Sounder]

What Harvey posted gets to the heart of the matter.

Fact is, with our current (split-model) Dominant Narrative we select for narcissism, and it is naive then to think that narcissists can be 'controlled'.

I agree with Elvis,--it seems so easy for Imperial power to shit-bomb any country they like, the people of the recipient country suffer, then the imperial instigator whips the press into a lather, justifying more money for suffering in said recipient country, all the while endorsed by ill informed and unable to learn from experience progressives and conservatives alike.

Some of the stuff may even be true, but it is their business not ours.

[Heaven Swan]

Thanks everyone for commenting.
I see what you’re saying now Elvis.

And thanks Harvey for posting the videos. I watched most of the first one and plan to watch the other soon.
I would love to still believe in the utopian dream of socialism, and even more so living in the midst of the current very distasteful stage of capitalism here in the US, but, in my case, reality has dissolved those dreams.

Regarding the video about Venezuela, I encourage you to read the comments on YouTube. Quite a few Venezuelans posted their views. Here are just a couple:

David Gutierrez
The Oposition has been silenced. The National assembly was blocked out of legislation by orders of Diosdado Cabello, same sinister baster funded by Narcogroups from Colombia.

Indesputedly elected? 34:20 how can you say that when the government, that has complete control of the media and all political branches. The Percentages in the past election results made no sense and the oposers denunciated votes being bought by governement employees.

Leopoldo Lopez never called for a violent protest, the protest ignited itself after the people had been attacked and killed by the government. There is footage that show how the government police has shot in cold blood even peacefull protesters. Maduro, with all the powers at hand, can easily control the media to conspire against his oposition.

Finally, Maduro is far from being humble, but a corrupted prick. Like Chavez, he has ownership of dozens of properties, even in the US, bought with the money of the Venezuelan people. His sons drive golden Lambos in the Keys and even get elected by their father to run the country. Where the F´´´is the democracy and the humbleness, and the "socialism" and Humanity of that?

If you like Venezuela so much, you are free to move there!
There is a lot of vacancy now with all the exiled people leaving the country, thanks to the terrible adminsitration, the corruption and the cynical hypocrecy of this dictator.
3 days ago

toni rodrigues
Come on, you and Abby are paid by russian television and think nobody knows that what you really do is propaganda and not journalism?
3 days ago
1


Empire Files
toni rodrigues how are we paid by Russia?
2 days ago


toni rodrigues
Abby used to work on Russian Television (RT), as you can see clearly even on Abby's wikipedia entry. And you use as an avatar here the logo of Empire Files, wich airs on Telesur, what is even worse on this case, since Telesur is maintained by the Venezuelan Government, and at this moment, it is probably using russian or chinese dollars to stay afloat. If you are just a citizen defending Venezuela, stop using this logo, but i doubt you are.
2 days ago

I’m not so interested in determining which individual politicians are narcissistic, it’s true that a lot can be understood from an individuals words and deeds but without having personal contact it’s not so easy to know. I’m more interested in the apparent fact that both capitalism and communism have failed because of the ruthless drive to attain positions of power that many personality disordered people seem to have.

I don’t really know the answer to this dilemma, I started this thread to explore the question and I’m happy that others are interested as well.

[Elvis]

I just want to say that Abby Martin is one of the best journalists working today, anywhere.

[Heaven Swan]

Sorry, I don't think I provided enough information about the situation in Nicaragua. It is hard to get news outside the country. Thanks for caring.

Here is a video and transcript of ex-Sandinistas interviewed on Democracy Now! The report has two parts. The second part is linked below.


CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH VIDEO of the FOLLOWING INTERVIEW
https://publish.dvlabs.com/democracynow ... end=2500.0

Students Push to Oust Nicaraguan President Ortega as Death Toll Rises Amid Bloody Police Crackdown
StoryJune 07, 201

At least five people were killed over the weekend in Nicaragua amid escalating anti-government protests that have engulfed the country since mid-April. More than 110 people have been killed since widespread demonstrations to oust Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega began in mid-April, when his government announced plans to overhaul and slash social security. The protests, and the government’s bloody repression, mark the biggest crisis since Ortega was elected 11 years ago. In Abuja, Nigeria, we speak with Alejandro Bendaña, former Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations and secretary general of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry during Sandinista rule in Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990. In Managua, Nicaragua, we speak with Mónica López Baltodano, a human rights activist who is on the front lines of protests. We also speak with Stephen Hellinger, president of The Development Group for Alternative Policies.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Nicaragua, where at least five people were killed over the weekend amid escalating anti-government protests that have engulfed the country since mid-April. More than 110 people have been killed since widespread demonstrations to oust Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega began in mid-April, when his government announced plans to overhaul and slash social security. Amnesty International has accused the Nicaraguan government of using, quote, “pro-government armed groups to carry out attacks, incite violence, increase their capacity for repression and operate outside the law.”

AMY GOODMAN: But supporters of President Ortega have blamed the opposition for much of the violence. Foreign Minister Denis Moncada has accused the opposition of pushing for a soft coup. Thousands have been injured, hundreds have been arrested in the demonstrations, including a Mother’s Day march where government forces opened fire on demonstrators led by the mothers of the victims last week. This is Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights President Vilma Nuñez, speaking to the Organization of American States on Monday.

VILMA NUÑEZ DE ESCORCIA: [translated] Above all, we have to highlight the brutal crackdown on the peaceful protest by the mothers, whose loved ones were killed in April, that took place on the 30th of May, when Nicaragua celebrates Mother’s Day. This violence greatly exceeds the violation of the right to life of more than 110 people and hundreds of wounded, detained and tortured people. … Only last night, seven people were killed—among them, a 15-year-old kid.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The government has denied responsibility for the scourge of killings in Nicaragua since mid-April. The protests, and the government’s bloody repression, marked the biggest crisis since Ortega was elected 11 years ago. Ortega has served as president of Nicaragua since 2007. In the late 1970s, as the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, he helped overthrow the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. Ortega then led Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, before being elected again in 2007. But the new protests have pitted Ortega against some of his former Sandinista allies.

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s who we’re going to turn to now. For more, we’re joined by three people.

From Abuja, Nigeria, we’re joined by Alejandro Bendaña. He is the founder of the Center for International Studies in Managua, Nicaragua. He served as the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United Nations, as well as secretary general of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry during the Sandinista government in Nicaragua from 1979 to ’90.

In Managua, we’re joined by Mónica López Baltodano. She is a human rights activist who’s on the front lines of protests in Nicaragua and the author of a book about the Nicaraguan Canal.

And in New York, we’re joined by Stephen Hellinger, president Development GAP, The Development Group for Alternative Policies, which has worked around the world with local organizations since 1976 to promote economic justice through changes in prevailing international economic programs and policies. He has lived and worked extensively in Nicaragua.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Mónica López Baltodano. You’re on the ground in Managua. Explain what’s happening.

MÓNICA LÓPEZ BALTODANO: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity.

What we have been seeing for the past 45 days is the rise-up of a very strong popular rebellion against the violence of Daniel Ortega’s government. The rebellion has been led by youth, mostly kids in the—youth in the universities, but also it’s now become a rebellion of all Nicaraguan population. We have seen massive protests on the streets and also important actions of protest that are happening—for instance, more than 70 percent of the roads in Nicaragua are blocked by population—that is requesting two basic things: justice for the more than 127 people that have been murdered by Ortega’s regime so far, and more than 1,000 people injured, and also the decision of Nicaraguan population that Ortega and his wife leaves power. And the protests are getting higher and bigger every day. Today, Managua is blocked all over the main streets, because people are not being represented by the negotiation process. The government is trying to move forward without accomplishing what people is asking, is that they leave power as soon as possible.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Alejandro Bendaña, I wanted to ask you—you served in the Sandinista government. Can you explain what’s happened in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega? What has changed since you occupied the senior government positions in the Sandinista government?

ALEJANDRO BENDAÑA: Well, thank you, and good morning.

One has to remember key historical facts. The Sandinista revolution began in 1979 and ended in 1990 with the electoral defeat of Daniel Ortega. But this has not spelled the end of Ortega, because for 17 years he worked tenaciously to get back into power. But to do this, he got rid of his potential competitors and many old Sandinista backers. He embraced corporate capital in Nicaragua. He adopted the most retrograded positions of the church and entered into an alliance, and reached an understanding with the U.S., so that he was able to barely win the presidency in 2007.

But by that time, he himself is no longer a Sandinista. Yes, the trappings, the colors are still there, but his entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive. Yet it continued to maintain a leftist rhetoric, chiefly for the benefit of getting Venezuelan cooperation, money. But that, too, came to an end, not only the money, and also Ortega’s backing for the Maduro government has also ended, as seen in recent votes in the OAS, where he refused to—the present government refused to back—or, vote against a resolution that wanted Venezuela kicked out of the OAS.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Alejandro, can you explain—you just said that Ortega came to an understanding with the U.S. What do you mean by that?

ALEJANDRO BENDAÑA: OK, there’s two aspects to that. First is the historical understanding. Ortega—the military-to-military relations under the Ortega government have always been very—very, very warm, anti-drug, anti-immigration. What Ortega tells the United States is, “I’m going to keep the Nicaraguans from flowing up northward to your borders, but—and I’m going to give you stability for capital. But I want a little leeway with foreign policy and rhetoric.” Now, this understanding became strained.

But what we now have, in the last 10 days, is a new—and we need to denounce this clearly—a negotiation that is taking place in Washington between Ortega and the United States government, that is being mediated by the Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro, to try to ease Ortega out of office. Now, that would be OK if he left tomorrow. But the problem is that negotiation means he wants to go through constitutional changes, electoral changes and an eventual election. And we’d be talking about a year, year and a half. So, what we’re—and that’s too long, when two or three or four people are getting killed and gunned down every day. In addition to that, those are negotiations that, secondly, should be taking place in Washington, and, third, cannot signify impunity for Ortega, which was the—which is the first thing he’s putting on the table. So, he has to go. And then we can talk about a provisional arrangement for a transition government. But this negotiations means more death and destruction.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the issue of social security, the—what has prompted these protests, Ambassador Bendaña? Also, I mean, you were a very well-known Sandinista. What this means to you to be speaking out now, in 2018, against your former longtime ally, Daniel Ortega?

ALEJANDRO BENDAÑA: Oh, yes, I was embarrassingly close to Daniel Ortega, but I broke with him in 1998—that’s 20 years ago—as have a good many people. Many of us were already there. We consider ourselves Sandinistas and believe that Ortega and his cohorts betrayed the Nicaraguan revolution. So, what we’re trying to—we are part of this broad movement that wants him out, but we do not renounce our ideals. We do not renounce Sandino. We do not renounce our identity. But he has to go, if there is any prospect of Nicaragua re-embarking on a path toward, first, reform and, eventually, more structural, institutional change. He is now the principal obstacle, as seen from a left perspective. Unfortunately, that’s not seen the same way by people on the left that are ignorant of the reality.

The social security issue was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. Before that, there had been the destruction of a biological reserve. The students—it must be said, the students went out into the streets. And Ortega, instead of usually repressing by police methods, did something that was fatal. He opened—ordered the police to open fire on the students. And from that day forward, his alliances began to crack. And Nicaraguans, many of us, were shocked by what happened—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of—

ALEJANDRO BENDAÑA: —because it was a disboarding of people onto the streets, and it hasn’t stopped.
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Here is a part two of the report from Democracy Now!

Click on link for video and transcript

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/7/t ... uan_mother

The Country Is Crying: Nicaraguan Mother Demands Justice After Police Kill Her Son at Protest
StoryJune 07, 2018

[Heaven Swan]

The Nicaragua stuff may have been veering a bit off topic...so back OT


I just read an incredible research paper from 2002 entitled:


Why Tyrants Go Too Far: Malignant Narcissism and Absolute Power
by Betty Glad

I can't recopy it because behind a JSTOR paywall, but they do give you 6 free articles.

It analyses the careers of Stalin, Hitler and Saddam Hussein highlighting behaviors and actions wrt probable malignant narcissism and the progressive worsening of thei tyrannical abuses while using their positions of power as ways to cope with their personality disorder.
The parallels with the current US prez are bone-chilling.

Highly recommended!