Nicaragua has been crippled with political strife since massive protests erupted in April,

allegedly over the government's proposal to cut pensions.

Since then, violent clashes have paralyzed the country. More than 300 people have been killed,

thousands more have been injured. Strikingly similar to the unrest in Venezuela, the only narrative

that you hear on corporate media is that Ortega is a dangerous tyrant

who's gunning down peaceful protesters in the street.

Now, to talk about the other side of the story that you're not going to hear on Western press,

I'm joined now by Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist, author,

who spent several weeks in the country reporting on the protests,

and Camilo Magjia, a

Nicaraguan American, who's the son of a famous Sandinista singer, Carlos Mejia Godoy.

He's also an Iraq war resistor who served nine months in prison for refusing to deploy to

Iraq.

Thank you so much both of you for joining me today. Thanks for having us.

So Max, let's start with you.

I first want you to talk about what exactly initiated this unrest and how these protests effectively exploded here.

I mean, was this really students waging a battle against government pension cuts?

Well, I think Camilo could speak to the years of preparation that went into what we've seen

kind of take place in a lot of flashpoints in areas where the U.S. sought regime change.

It's kind of the color revolution model.

And in this case, it was, yes, it was supposedly

over pension cuts and students were supposedly going out and protesting what was presented

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