[succ] Go directly to the solutions tent, do not collect 600 dollars

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [succ] Go directly to the solutions tent, do not collect 600 dollars

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gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Weembles posted:

But we all know he's eventually going to host a segment explaning why Mayor Pete's plans to fit everyone in the US with radio tracking collars is the only rational way to tax americans for sidewalk maintenance.

Grim was a Warrenite, not a Petey Poster

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:23

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# ? May 26, 2024 00:12

Happy Noodle Boy: Jul 3, 2002

mcmagic posted:

The second the republicans take over the house in 2023 Ilhan is getting kicked off all her committees and probably half the democrats are going to vote for it too.

it�s called being bipartisan

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:24

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

mcmagic posted:

The second the republicans take over the house in 2023 Ilhan is getting kicked off all her committees and probably half the democrats are going to vote for it too.

They gotta give some concessions first before the republicans will consider their infrastructure bill, after all.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:29

Probably Magic: Oct 9, 2012; Looking cute, feeling cute.

DoomTrainPhD posted:

The amount of white washing the US gets in public schools is always shocking to me. I blame Texas as that�s where all of the public school textbooks come from.

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:34

StealthArcher: Jan 10, 2010

Srice posted:

They gotta give some concessions first before the republicans will consider their infrastructure bill, after all.

*0 Rs vote for this one either*

"Ah, but nevertheless..."

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:35

Buffer: May 6, 2007; I sometimes turn down sex and blowjobs from my girlfriend because I'm too busy posting in D&D. PS: She used my credit card to pay for this.

Probably Magic posted:

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

how did they square that one with the common trope of confederates still being americans?

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:36

The Nastier Nate: May 22, 2005; All aboard the corona bus!

HONK! HONK!; Yams Fan

Probably Magic posted:

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

oh yea...even if the teachers never explicitly said it (many did) it was heavily implied

or i think i remember one of my teachers saying the only war America ever lost was Vietnam and leaving it at that.

And to be fair, you can't technically "lose" a war if it never ends

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:36

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

mcmagic posted:

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1403187718184706049

OK the "ryan redpill's chud lady show" might be better than I had originally thought .

I DuckDuckGo searched for Rising and found that right-wing outlets are saying this is "historical revisionism" because it omits talking about internal state-sponsored Soviet antisemitism, but it's like...these are two different topics? It's like saying if you talk about Navajo Codebreakers without talking about Native American genocide, it must be because you're doing historical revisionism. That's the best they've got except for posting insults and shocked meme images like pictures of Bert the Sesame Street muppet.

galenanorth has issued a correction as of 16:38 on Jun 11, 2021

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:36

really queer Christmas: Apr 22, 2014

Probably Magic posted:

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

I was taught this, and it's because Korea was a "UN mandate" and Vietnam was like "supporting an ally" or some poo poo as to why they didn't count.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:37

duomo: Oct 9, 2007; Soiled Meat

the Markey teens being Warren supporters explains why they put in so much effort to prop up an old conservative

"Boston Magazine posted:

hen she got involved in electoral politics, first volunteering for Elizabeth Warren�s presidential campaign, then going to work for Markey. (Along the way she also was the communications director for Jordan Meehan�s unsuccessful state rep campaign.)

Students for Markey�and ultimately the Markeyverse�grew out of two things. One was the wreckage of the failed Warren and Sanders presidential runs. �We had all supported Bernie or Warren and became really disenchanted, honestly, with politics,� Walsh says of herself and her co-organizers.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:37

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Phone posted:

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1403188934251880448?s=20

lollll

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:37

Wraith of J.O.I.: Jan 25, 2012

Phone posted:

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1403188934251880448?s=20

learning about history is a gateway to "tankie-dom" yes jordan

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:39

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Probably Magic posted:

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

yeah i was taught this too. something about how vietnam didn�t count because we decided to withdraw when we got bored of it, and korea was never mentioned at all. i didn�t even know america was in the korean war until i was in college, and my grandfather fought in it!!!

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:40

John Charity Spring: Nov 4, 2009; SCREEEEE

Probably Magic posted:

Was anyone else taught in school in the Nineties that the US had never lost a war? I swear this was a thing, and it just treated Korea and Vietnam as "not real wars" despite there being a draft and everything. It's my own Mandela moment, I'm still grappling with being taught something that insane.

not american and wasn't taught anything pf the kind but i encountered this as the majority view among americans on various forums i was on as a teenager. i remember vietnam was handwaved as a 'police action' not a war and also the kill/death ratio, look, how can you call that a defeat

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:40

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

I was taught that we never lost the Korean war because it's technically still not over, just in a continuing state of cease-fire. And we did lose Vietnam, but it was because of weak leadership and the left back home weakening our leadership's resolve even further, and that if we had the right people in place and cracked down on the left that we would have won.

Son of Thunderbeast has issued a correction as of 16:49 on Jun 11, 2021

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:42

Eggplant Squire: Aug 14, 2003

My high school history curriculum never really got into winners and losers outside of WW2.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:44

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

learning about history is a gateway to "tankie-dom" yes jordan

https://twitter.com/JHWeissmann/status/1403190764990050305

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:49

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

the basic geographical fact that the Nazi death camps were located between Berlin and Minsk is a road that will lead one to becoming a tankie

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:49

Raccooon: Dec 5, 2009

Another one that really pisses people off is telling people Iran won the Iraq War.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:50

Snake Dance: Jan 5, 2020; by Azathoth

mcmagic posted:

The second the republicans take over the house in 2023 Ilhan is getting kicked off all her committees and probably half the democrats are going to vote for it too.

mcmagic... welcome to the resistance

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:53

Probably Magic: Oct 9, 2012; Looking cute, feeling cute.

John Charity Spring posted:

not american and wasn't taught anything pf the kind but i encountered this as the majority view among americans on various forums i was on as a teenager. i remember vietnam was handwaved as a 'police action' not a war and also the kill/death ratio, look, how can you call that a defeat

Yeah, "police action" was the take I was given too. You know, a police action you drafted people to participate in.

Buffer posted:

how did they square that one with the common trope of confederates still being americans?

This would've been in Kentucky where the Civil War was still a sore subject, so they were very much just treated as "traitors." But then maybe a little too much lingering on the fact that the Civil War should've ended sooner since the North had all the supplies and how its generals were incompetent which, while true, seemed an odd factoid to accentuate as opposed to, "The South didn't want the North to have the right to free slaves," which was never touched appropriately upon.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:55

World War Mammories: Aug 25, 2006

I very distinctly remember being seven or eight years old and watching Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego. one of the time villains (a dark-skinned guy in knight armor) was describing an American war to be identified for a prize, and he ended it with ��and her first defeat! (evil laugh)� the answer was Vietnam and I remember thinking �oh, I didn�t know we lost any.�

and wrt Korea, I had no loving clue SK ever had a dictatorship until I took an east asian history course on a whim in college. and I was one of those �gifted� kids who were supposed to be showered in the best education nyc could offer

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:58

really queer Christmas: Apr 22, 2014

gradenko_2000 posted:

the basic geographical fact that the Nazi death camps were located between Berlin and Minsk is a road that will lead one to becoming a tankie

# ? Jun 11, 2021 16:59

Mokelumne Trekka: Nov 22, 2015; Soon.

that Rising clip with the new hosts is a perfect summary of right vs left discourse

left: "the U.S. did anti-democratic coups across the globe, which challenges many notions of America as a force of good"
right: "acknowledge our troops. have brave American men and woman died for our country? SAY IT"

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:06

Son of Thunderbeast: Sep 21, 2002

World War Mammories posted:

and wrt Korea, I had no loving clue SK ever had a dictatorship until I took an east asian history course on a whim in college. and I was one of those �gifted� kids who were supposed to be showered in the best education nyc could offer

Yeah, my mom grew up with her family constantly starving and scrapping to survive, one of her brothers even starved to death under the dictatorship. She (and it seems drat near everyone) were propagandized to hell and back though and to this day her politics are heavily based on & influenced by 일민주의 (thanks to her mom) and she hates communists through and through, even though she was born after the Korean war ended and she grew up under capitalists & capitalism. She's never connected those dots and I'm not inclined to try and help her tbh; it's just a conversation that we'll probably have to have at some point whenever she figures out my politics these days.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:06

Oh Snapple!: Dec 27, 2005

Propping up Markey was worth it to kick sand in that entitled inbred mutants face.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:07

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

World War Mammories posted:

and wrt Korea, I had no loving clue SK ever had a dictatorship until I took an east asian history course on a whim in college. and I was one of those �gifted� kids who were supposed to be showered in the best education nyc could offer

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:08

Wraith of J.O.I.: Jan 25, 2012

Mokelumne Trekka posted:

that Rising clip with the new hosts is a perfect summary of right vs left discourse

left: "the U.S. did anti-democratic coups across the globe, which challenges many notions of America as a force of good"
right: "acknowledge our troops. have brave American men and woman died for our country? SAY IT"

yup

https://twitter.com/Vinncent/status/1403367531516203008
https://twitter.com/Vinncent/status/1403369375969820680

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:08

Meatball: Mar 2, 2003; That's a Spicy Meatball; Pillbug

mcmagic posted:

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1403187718184706049

OK the "ryan redpill's chud lady show" might be better than I had originally thought .

I hope he shows her Rambo 3 later

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:10

FormaldehydeSon: Oct 1, 2011

mcmagic posted:

The second the republicans take over the house in 2023 Ilhan is getting kicked off all her committees and probably half the democrats are going to vote for it too.

Half?

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:14

Mokelumne Trekka: Nov 22, 2015; Soon.

Bill Maher follows a similar format as Rising: have some left-leaners and at least one Republican grenade thrown in for entertainment. it's common. that is why engaging with these programs is pretty much a waste. the discourse is completely dead, the programs themselves are not in good-faith

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:19

Excelzior: Jun 24, 2013

remember Crossfire

lmao

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:21

Excelzior: Jun 24, 2013

Paul Begala was mega-succ

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:22

FormaldehydeSon: Oct 1, 2011

https://mobile.twitter.com/getfiscal/status/1403059804789215237

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:24

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Excelzior posted:

remember Crossfire

lmao

I know you mean the show but all I could think of was the toy commercial lmao

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:24

galenanorth: May 19, 2016

This is the first time I'm hearing about the U.S. assisting the ratline in order to get Nazis into South American death squads. I'll have to try to read up on that more later

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/26/how-real-nazis-came-to-the-americas-the-recruitment-of-klaus-barbie/

quote:

By the early 1960s, Barbie was once again working with the CIA to put a US-backed thug in power. In the years that followed, the old Nazi became a central player in the US-inspired Condor Program, aimed at suppressing popular insurgencies and keeping US-controlled dictators in power throughout Latin America. Barbie helped organize the so-called �Cocaine Coup� of 1980, when a junta of Bolivian generals seized power, slaughtering their leftist opponents and reaping billions in the cocaine boom, in which Bolivia was a prime supplier.

galenanorth has issued a correction as of 17:28 on Jun 11, 2021

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:25

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

galenanorth posted:

This is the first time I'm hearing about the U.S. assisting the ratline in order to get Nazis into South American death squads. I'll have to try to read up on that more later

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/26/how-real-nazis-came-to-the-americas-the-recruitment-of-klaus-barbie/

TrueAnon did a few episodes on this if you want to listen to podcasts.

https://soundcloud.com/trueanonpod/permanent-uncle-1

It even comes up in one of the "Well there's your problem" episodes.

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:27

DACK FAYDEN: Feb 25, 2013; Bear Witness

Oh Snapple! posted:

Propping up Markey was worth it to kick sand in that entitled inbred mutants face.

and yeah, gently caress the entire Kennedy clan

like Markey's trash but that's okay because propping him up singlehandedly hosed over not just the living Kennedy but all the ghosts of the dead

it was basically chappaquiddick 2.0 except this time the kennedy died

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:27

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

galenanorth posted:

This is the first time I'm hearing about the U.S. assisting the ratline in order to get Nazis into South American death squads. I'll have to try to read up on that more later

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/02/26/how-real-nazis-came-to-the-americas-the-recruitment-of-klaus-barbie/

speaking of South American death squads:

https://cispes.org/programs/electio...to-death-squads

Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads

quote:

In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.

When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region. Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globereporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank. It was a lucrative trip.

The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients. "Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008. Strachan declined to be interviewed for this story.

When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami. "I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Due�as, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira." Romney could also have thanked investors from two other wealthy and powerful Central American clans -- the de Sola and Salaverria families, who the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe have reported were founding investors in Bain Capital.

While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Due�as clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war. The death squads committed atrocities on such a mass scale for so small a country that their killing spree sparked international condemnation. From 1979 to 1992, some 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran civil war, according to the United Nations.

In 1982, two years before Romney began raising money from the oligarchs, El Salvador's independent Human Rights Commission reported that, of the 35,000 civilians killed, "most" died at the hands of death squads. A United Nations truth commission concluded in 1993 that 85 percent of the acts of violence were perpetrated by the right, while the left-wing Farabundo Mart� National Liberation Front, which was supported by the Cuban government, was responsible for 5 percent.

When The Huffington Post asked the Romney campaign about Bain Capital accepting funds from families tied to death squads, a spokeswoman forwarded a 1999 Salt Lake Tribune article to explain the campaign's position on the matter. She declined to comment further. "Romney confirms Bain had investors in El Salvador. But, as was Bain's policy with any big investor, they had the families checked out as diligently as possible," theTribune wrote. "They uncovered no unsavory links to drugs or other criminal activity." Nobody with a basic understanding of the region's history could believe that assertion. By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed connections between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the families that invested with Romney.

The sitting U.S. ambassador to El Salvador charged that several families, including at least one that invested with Bain, were living in Miami and directly funding death squads. Even by 1981, El Salvador's elite, largely relocated to Miami, were so angered by the public perception that they were financing death squads that they reached out to the media to make their case. The two men put forward to represent the oligarchs were both from families that would invest in Bain three years later. The most cursory review of their backgrounds would have turned up the ties. The connection between the families involved with Bain's founding and those who financed death squads was made by the Boston Globe in 1994 and the Salt Lake Tribune in 1999. This election cycle, Salon first raised the issue in January, and the Los Angeles Times filled out more of the record earlier this month. There is no shortage of unsavory links. Even the Tribune article referred to by the Romney campaign reports that "about $6.5 million of $37 million that established the company came from wealthy El Salvadoran families linked to right-wing death squads."

The Salaverria family, whose fortune came from producing cotton and coffee, had deep connections to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), a political party that death-squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson founded in the fall of 1981. The year before, El Salvador's government had pushed through land reforms and nationalized the coffee trade, moves that threatened a ruling class whose financial and political dominance was built in large part on growing coffee. ARENA controlled and directed death squads during its early years.

On March 24, 1980, Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador and an advocate of the poor, was celebrating Mass at a chapel in a small hospital when he was assassinated on D'Aubuisson's orders, according to a person involved in the murder who later came forward. The day before, Romero, an immensely popular figure, had called on the country's soldiers to refuse the government's orders to attack fellow Salvadorans. "Before another killing order is given," he advised in his sermon, "the law of God must prevail: Thou shalt not kill." In 1984, Robert White, the former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, named two Salaverria brothers -- Julio and Juan Ricardo -- as two of six Salvadoran exiles in Miami who had directly funded death squads, repeating in sworn congressional testimony a claim he'd made earlier as ambassador. The group became known as the "Miami Six." White testified that a source close to the Miami Six had notified the U.S. embassy of their activities in January 1981. White was pushed out of his job by the incoming Reagan administration in 1981; he was considered insufficiently supportive of the Salvadoran ruling class. (D'Aubuisson endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1984.)

When contacted by phone recently, White reiterated his claim about the Salaverria brothers, but said he couldn't reveal his source's identity in order to protect the source. "The Salaverria family were very well-known as backers of D'Aubuisson," White told The Huffington Post. "These guys were big-money contributors. ... They were total backers of D'Aubuisson and the extremist solution, including death squads."

Alfonso Salaverria was a close associate of Orlando de Sola, a leading death-squad figure, and, like him, supported D'Aubuisson. The Salaverria family also violently resisted land reform efforts. When the Salvadoran government seized about 140 of the country's largest farms in March 1980, 73-year-old Raul Salaverria was the only landowner to openly resist, the Washington Post reported at the time. A brief exchange of gunfire between government forces and Salaverria's people resulted in two injuries, and 1,500 weapons were allegedly found on the property. Eight years later, workers in an agrarian reform co-operative whose land once belonged to the Salaverrias barely escaped an assassination attempt. "Members of the co-op suspect the former owners, the Salaverria family, were behind the violence," a 1988 Human Rights Watch report said. The family denied involvement.

Francisco de Sola and his cousin, Herbert Arturo de Sola, also invested early in Bain, according to the Los Angeles Times. Two other members of the de Sola family were "limited partners," according to the Boston Globe, but the Romney campaign declined to provide The Huffington Post with their names. The de Sola family was one of El Salvador's most powerful coffee growers and a financier of the ARENA party. Herbert's brother was the notorious Orlando de Sola, who resisted the peace negotiations toward the end of the civil war. The Romney campaign acknowledges Orlando de Sola's connection to death squads but insists he is not representative of the de Sola family investors. While Romney told the Tribune in 1999 that the backgrounds of the families had been checked diligently, he had explained to the Boston Globe in 1994 that Bain's due diligence included only the backgrounds of the individual investors, not their family members. "We investigated the individuals' integrity and looked for any obvious signs of illegal activity and problems in their background, and found none. We did not investigate in-laws and relatives."

Deflecting the association with Orlando, Strachan, whom Romney had charged with vetting the investors, described him that same year to the Globe as "the black sheep of the family. ... He was kicked out of the family business." Yet there is strong evidence that Orlando was anything but a black sheep in the de Sola family. Indeed, he was a leading public face of the Salvadoran elites in Miami, speaking, for example, on behalf of the El Salvador Freedom Foundation, the organization which arranged a U.S. press conference for D'Aubuisson as part of its public relations activities on behalf of the oligarchs and ARENA. An Associated Press story from April 1981 includes Orlando de Sola and Alfonso Salaverria speaking on behalf of the oligarchs in exile. The story also makes reference to White's charges regarding the funding of death squads, indicating that the charges were already well known by that point. But the ties run deeper still.

In 1990, Orlando de Sola, D'Aubuisson and founding Bain investor Francisco de Sola allegedly assassinated two left-wing activists then in Guatemala, according to a report by that country's government, which cited its intelligence sources. The activists had just held a meeting with then-Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who was attempting to broker a Salvadoran peace deal. Francisco de Sola later pleaded his and his cousin Orlando's innocence to the U.S. ambassador. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights looked further into the killings and concluded that elements of the Salvadoran right were indeed the mostly likely assassins, but said that it couldn't confirm the guilt of the de Solas or D'Aubuisson. It deemed the investigation incomplete and called for a deeper look. The three men were never charged.

Francisco de Sola is now president of the Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development. His assistant, Ada Chang, said that he was traveling and unavailable to comment, but she confirmed to HuffPost that he had been accused of murdering the two leftists in 1990. Whether he committed the crime or not, the fact that Guatemalan intelligence would associate him with Orlando de Sola and D'Aubuisson, and place them in Guatemala together, casts further doubt on Strachan's claim that Orlando de Sola was merely a "black sheep" who had been "kicked out of the family business." Orlando de Sola, who is serving an unrelated prison sentence for fraud, told the Los Angeles Times that he did not personally benefit from the Bain investments. "I would say their relationship with Bain Capital was a step to diversify into foreign investments," he said of his family. Ricardo Poma was the first investor Romney thanked when he traveled to Miami in 2007. The head of the Poma Group, he became one of the three members of the Bain Capital investment committee, according to Strachan's memoir. The Poma family were financiers of D'Aubuisson's ARENA party.

The Regalado-Due�as family, like many of El Salvador's other powerful clans, amassed much of their wealth and political power through the coffee industry. Along with the Alvarez family, they also helped to found Banco Comercial, one of the biggest banks in El Salvador. The Regalado-Due�as and Alvarez families were leading supporters of ARENA. Arturo Due�as "regularly supplied" the head of an ARENA-affiliated "paramilitary unit ... with a variety of official Salvadoran documents," according to a redacted 1984 CIA document, which uses the euphemism for death squad. (Salvadoran government documents were used by death squads to assemble lists of people to kill.) Miguel Due�as and Ricardo Poma did not respond to requests for comment. The Salaverria brothers are dead, according to Ambassador White.

Jeffery Paige, author of "Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America" and a professor at the University of Michigan, has studied the political economy of Central American oligarchies. Romney's claim to have checked out the backgrounds of the families and come away satisfied befuddles Paige. "These people benefited from one of the most exploitative and repressive agricultural systems in Latin America. That's why they had a revolution," Paige said. "This money, certainly there wasn't much concern where it came from and what these people had done to make that money."

Sergio Bendixen, who now does polling for President Barack Obama, spent a significant amount of time in El Salvador in the early '80s, doing political polling for Univision. He said that he met D'Aubuisson on many occasions and found him to be one of the warmest, most charming and charismatic people he has ever met. But he said D'Aubuisson was also very upfront about what he saw as the justifiable use of death squads. "There were 10 or 30 bodies in the street every morning," Bendixen recalled of his time there. "D'Aubuisson said it was necessary. The message needed to be sent [that] if you were associated with the communists or socialists, you had to be killed. He said it was an instrument in keeping the violence down, because others would see the consequences." Bendixen suggested that a cursory look would have shown Romney what those families were involved with. "If anybody tries to tell you there was a line, a Chinese wall, between ARENA and the death squads, that's just not the way it was," he said.

The Salvadoran elite in Miami talked openly at the time, he said, of supporting the death squads battling the rebels. It wasn't a source of shame, Bendixen recalled, but a source of pride. "They were proud of the fact that they were supporting their country against the communists," he said. As Romney now seeks support from the Latino community in his campaign for president, his knowledge of Bain's all-too-few degrees of separation from Salvadoran death squads may become a topic of interest. "Under Ronald Reagan, the U.S. sent billions of dollars to the murderous regime, which utilized that aid to fund the military and death squads in an effort to preserve the unjust privileges of the Salvadoran oligarchy," said Arturo J. Viscarra, an immigration lawyer, who, like many other Salvadorans, emigrated to the United States in order to escape the civil war.

He said his family left the country in 1980 after his father began receiving death threats. "To now learn that a man that may become president of the U.S. deserves some of his success due to the incredible inequality that the U.S. helped to preserve in El Salvador is ironic," Viscarra said. "It's morbidly funny.� The U.S. involvement in the bloodshed is now seen as a black mark on the nation's record.

When President Obama visited Central America in March 2011, he made a symbolic stop at Romero's grave, lighting a candle for the archbishop. Romney, however, has shown no public remorse for signing up such investors, although the concept of culpability is not foreign to him. When he returned to Miami in 2007, he condemned those who had financed torture and other human rights abuses during the Salvadoran civil war -- just not those he was connected to. "These friends didn't just help me; they taught me," Romney said. "Ricardo's brother had been tortured and murdered by rebel terrorists in El Salvador. Miguel himself had been chained to a floor in Guatemala for weeks and tortured. And their torturers were financed by Fidel Castro. I learned from these friends about the human cost when Castro has money."

the person who broke this story? Ryan Grim

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:28

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# ? May 26, 2024 00:12

Excelzior: Jun 24, 2013

arent there a bunch of mormons in mexico/south america

like all of the hardcore polygamists

....and thats where Romney's family is from

# ? Jun 11, 2021 17:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [succ] Go directly to the solutions tent, do not collect 600 dollars

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