Back in the days of "the Contras," Daniel Ortega was given the red carpet treatment that so many Hollywood celebrities saved for their anti-U.S. idols.   

Back in July 1986, Peter, Paul & Mary, the famous folk trio that I honestly enjoy listening to, gave Daniel Ortega a special day:   

Peter, Paul and Mary are singing the praises of Nicaragua's Sandinista government, despite its shutdown late last month of La Prensa, the last opposition newspaper in the country.

The veteran folk group has been in Managua performing public concerts.  Among the attendees: President Daniel Ortega and about 100 Sandinista soldiers (they got in free).

"As the daughter of two journalists, censorship is something I abhor," said the trio's Mary Travers.  "It signals a great disturbance and it is not good for any society.  But I believe that the government of Nicaragua has a war on its hands.  I believe that the aggressor of that war (the Contras) is funded by the United States.  I also believe La Prensa has a history of publishing things that are likely to destabilize the government.  It has supported the American aid to destroy the government."

During one performance, the singers stunned internationalistas – as persons from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries are called here – as well as Sandinista dignitaries with a stanza from the song "El Salvador."  It compares U.S. involvement in El Salvador to the Soviet Union's involvement in Poland.

Well, something is blowing in the wind down in Nicaragua, and it's not freedom.  

President Daniel Ortega has turned into a "butcher," and that's unkind to real butchers honestly making a living.  The latest victim is a 14-month-old baby!  A few days ago, a peaceful anti-Ortega demonstration was met with brutal force.

It is terrible down in Nicaragua, and anti-Castro Cuban journalist and writer Carlos Alberto Montaner is comparing President Ortega and his first lady to the Ceaușescus of communist Romania.

Montaner is calling on the Ortegas to accept responsibility for the killings in Nicaragua or face a similar fate to the Romanian tyrants, executed in December 1989.

We don't know if President Ortega will survive, but his harsh tactics are for real.  

It's only fair to call on the celebrities who stood with Ortega, Chávez, and earlier Castro to opine on what's going on down in those countries. 

It was celebrities who made heroes out of these communists.  Shouldn't they be asked about it?

Nothing happening in Nicaragua or Venezuela has anything to do with the U.S.  Instead, what we see down there are failing dictatorships surviving at all costs.

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