327 sats \ 1 reply \ @Atreus 4 Nov 2023 \ on: El Salvador's Bitcoin Bet: Unraveling Media Myths bitcoin
Salvadoran-American & bitcoiner here. Let me give my two cents in 5 quick points.
  1. Civilization has a hierarchy of needs. The Declaration of Independence doesn't say you have a right to "the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and life," but to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I imagine Thomas Jefferson ordered it that way under the understandable assumption that one must be alive to be free and happy.
  1. El Salvador was not, and has not been, a "democracy." We shouldn't ourselves promote the farce that the media likes to promote about these countries.
  1. Post-war El Salvador was an oligarchy, with superficial democratic institutions that kept up the clown show. And it was a clown show 🤡 . Both of the old political parties used and cooperated with the gangs to influence elections. The poor were massively, and violently, oppressed by the criminal gangs who had direct cooperation with the country's oligarchs and made "treaties" with the governments.
  1. I can't adequately express how poor the security situation in El Salvador was a very short time ago. It was such a short time ago that Donald Trump was still president in the USA 🇺🇸 . That situation was preserved intentionally because it benefitted those in power; we know it was intentional because of how quickly Bukele ended the problem. Like drug needles on the streets of San Francisco, El Salvador's 30-year murderous clown show only needed someone with an interest in ending it for it to end.
  1. Like Pinocchio becoming a real boy, El Salvador is only now becoming a real nation. It's undergoing rapid political, social, and economic (via bitcoin) development. It's transitioning from an illusory clown show to reality, in the same way money is transitioning from illusion to reality through our own BTC projects. This will take a lot of time.
I have no idea where Bukele is going, but the man has proof-of-work. The clown show doesn't like it because it makes their still ongoing illusions more obvious, but that's hardly El Salvador's problem.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @netstatic OP 4 Nov 2023
  1. Post-war El Salvador was an oligarchy, with superficial democratic institutions that kept up the clown show. And it was a clown show 🤡 . Both of the old political parties used and cooperated with the gangs to influence elections. The poor were massively, and violently, oppressed by the criminal gangs who had direct cooperation with the country's oligarchs and made "treaties" with the governments.
Maybe that's the part that needs more media coverage, the opinions of more people with ties to the country. It's hard to know the answers to questions that never get asked. Almost none of the articles I've read about El Salvador have delved into what Bukele is moving the country away from, and how his policies might usher in a form of democracy that's closer to what one would think of democracy and away from what you described.
Whenever I see the big negative headlines it's always with North American and European outlets. EL Salvador needs more public support from journalists from within the country and those surrounding the area who benefit and are supportive of the changes.
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