Pinochet Legacy

[_JS]

We're all greedy to some extent but when some people's greed leads them to become enemies of the people by engaging in anti-Soviet, counterrevolutionary or pro-fascist activities, that is the end of their right to exist.  Real altruists have not only the right (in the name of the people) but also the duty to kill them.  Or, according to circumstances, to re-educate them and spare the ones who can be salvaged.

I have a difficult time reconciling socialism as advocated by JS and socialism as advocated by Michael Tee. They seem at odds to me. Am I wrong, JS? Michael Tee?

Mike and I have never had a discussion to compare ideologies. I know that we disagree on a number of things. For example, he supports the death penalty where I do not.

Personally, I believe in the socialism of Allende, Hardie, Brandt, and Attlee that is won at the ballot box. For now people are spellbound with the cheap trinkets of neoliberalism, but as inequality continues to grow (an interesting and increasing historical trend of neoliberal economics) I think that Lukacs' class consciousness will be realised and the poor and working class will grow to understand the power they have in a democracy.

The only violence that I fear may be necessary is that when this takes place, as the vast majority of voters will be in this category, the response might be one of pure brutality similar to the rule of Pinochet and the juntas and right-wing death squads of South and Central America. But no, I certainly hope that it would never come to that. I am a firm believer in turning the other cheek. Yet, it becomes such a difficult issue when the elite, as in places like El Salvador, decide to wage war on the poor, peasants, and even the Church.

[Michael Tee]

<<I have a difficult time reconciling socialism as advocated by JS and socialism as advocated by Michael Tee. They seem at odds to me. Am I wrong, JS? Michael Tee?>>

There are different flavours of socialism.  I'm hard-line and JS is soft-line.  I'm Stalinist and JS is SR (Social Revolutionary.)  (just kidding about JS and SR)

[Michael Tee]

JS, about Allende.  He disbanded the Workers' Militia just before the coup.  This was the stupidest and weakest thing he could have done and I blame him completely for the disaster that followed.  He never should have trusted the national army, it had very close ties with the U.S. military and the assassination of General Schneider should have alerted him to their plans, as should the truckers' and the housewives' (tin pan) strikes, which were entirely CIA creations.  THAT was the time to triple the workers' militia, arm them with Eastern-bloc arms and had the Soviet Navy pay a few friendly visits to Chilean naval bases and the country's commercial ports.  Allende was a coward and a weakling who failed to defend his country against fascism.

[_JS]

<<I have a difficult time reconciling socialism as advocated by JS and socialism as advocated by Michael Tee. They seem at odds to me. Am I wrong, JS? Michael Tee?>>

There are different flavours of socialism.  I'm hard-line and JS is soft-line.  I'm Stalinist and JS is SR (Social Revolutionary.)  (just kidding about JS and SR)

Just as long as I'm not a Social Democrat!

One of my favorite comedy sketches in any movie was from Monty Python's The Life of Brian

Reg:Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
Stan: Yeah, the Judean People's Front.
Reg: Yeah. Splitters.
Stan: And the Popular Front of Judea.
Reg: Yeah. Splitters.
Stan: And the People's Front of Judea.
Reg: Yea... what?
Stan: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
Reg: We're the People's Front of Judea!
Stan: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg: People's Front!
Francis: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
Reg: He's over there. [points to a lone man]
Reg, Stan, Francis, Judith: SPLITTER!

[Michael Tee]

That dialogue was hilarious. 

The whole film was hilarious. The part where the guy was being stoned for uttering the name of God, and when the people throwing the stones had to explain what the victim was being stoned for and unavoidably used the name of God in their explanations, so they themselves became targets of the stoning.  The crucifixion scene where Jesus lets some poor bugger carry his cross for him and slips off into the crowd while the poor bugger gets crucified in Jesus' place.  Those guys were pure comic genius.

[_JS]

JS, about Allende.  He disbanded the Workers' Militia just before the coup.  This was the stupidest and weakest thing he could have done and I blame him completely for the disaster that followed.  He never should have trusted the national army, it had very close ties with the U.S. military and the assassination of General Schneider should have alerted him to their plans, as should the truckers' and the housewives' (tin pan) strikes, which were entirely CIA creations.  THAT was the time to triple the workers' militia, arm them with Eastern-bloc arms and had the Soviet Navy pay a few friendly visits to Chilean naval bases and the country's commercial ports.  Allende was a coward and a weakling who failed to defend his country against fascism.

He did do that, true. I think that he was still hoping for something non-confrontational. It was certainly a miscalculation, there is no doubt about that. I think that he really believed in Chilean democracy and the constitution, which with one brief exception had existed for almost 130 years. You're right, it was a mistake, but I don't think he did so with any ill-intent. He really thought the situation was salvagable. Remember that such a coup had not really taken place in Chile before. Pinochet's fascist ruthlessness was something unseen. Even the Brazilian junta had worked with the people and had not adopted their ruthless tactics until the 70's.

The only hint at what lay ahead was in another part of the world...the CIA's pal Suharto, who had unleashed one of the most brutal campaigns of pure genocide (authentic genocide against the Chinese in Indonesia). But hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I really don't think Allende could foresee such inhumanity.

It is interersting to note that Pinochet and his army cronies and "Chicago Boys" considered the September 11 coup to be a "war." Indeed, they used bombers, artillery, and missile attacks. All to fight 34 armed men, which includes President Allende. It was very similar in style to Suharto's massive overwhelming of Sukarno's forces. Those 34 armed men (who were killed or imprisoned and later killed) would invoke years of what the Chilean military junta called "state of siege" which gave them power to disband Parliament, etc. It was all quite a show.  

[Michael Tee]

Well, I also had a soft spot for Allende, and I certainly liked his social welfare programs.  He reached into the lives of the poor and tried to supply real needs.  He certainly attracted a generation of young, selfless, intelligent, resourceful and committed workers from Chile and from many other countries.  I knew some of them by correspondence when I was in Amnesty, and I worked with Chilean refugees in Toronto.  I also was on the mailing list of an organization that I contributed to which tried to rehabilitate the victims of torture, many of whom, of course, had escaped from Chile.  You wouldn't even want to KNOW what those people had been through.

However, this wasn't a game.  When you are the leader of a country, particularly a country which has set off on the socialist path, you have to know that you are directly challenging the most evil, ruthless and unscrupulous power in today's world, a country which will stop at nothing in the pursuit of its goals (world domination) and which has had millions upon millions of people around the whole world tortured, maimed and killed for opposing it.  Allende was required to use the utmost vigilance and failed to do so.  Good will and a desire to be friends with everyone were actually couterproductive in that environment.  He should have immediately begun by cutting off the heads of his enemies and lined up some support from Russia, Cuba and their East Bloc supporters  and/or from the Chinese in anticipation of the Chilean armed forces coup.  By his failure to do so, he was more lethal than the Plague to those who believed in him and in real socialism.

[_JS]

Who knows what Allende may have done differently if given a second chance?

But you have to consider that he won with the people's support. In fact, despite all the dirty tricks of the United States, which included economic warfare, sabotage, and murder - his party gained seats in the Parliamentary midterm elections just before the coup. That's what really sent Nixon, Kissenger, Pinochet, and the others over the edge.

The plain fact was that Chilean society, as in Argentina, embraced developmentalist and socialist policies. It was true throughout their society. It was a part of their music, poetry, writing, religion, and history. I cannot pretend to know what went through Allende's mind, but I think that maybe he was sure that the people's faith in him and the Chilean democracy would prevail.

Of course history proved that theory incorrect. And you're right, this is the country that appointed Nazis to prominent positions in West Germany. We put Korean sympathizers with the Japanese occupiers - men guilty of heinous war crimes against their own people - in charge of the South Korean Army. Many of them later ran the country as brutal dictators. We threw out democratically elected leaders in Iran, Chile, and Greece in order to replace them with some of the world's most disturbing police states.

But we were very good at it. Look at the people convinced that this is the country responsible for "spreading freedom?" Or, as Sirs once said, that this country always has the best intentions. We toss in the catch phrases of "freedom," "liberty," "democracy," and until very recently people eat it with a spoon.

Maybe money talks, maybe we're that good at PR, maybe we made good Imperialists for a few decades there. I don't know. But for whatever reason Allende and many more in Latin America suffered horribly for it.

A real hero of mine (maybe my only hero, as I don't have many) was shot while consecrating the Eucharist in El Salvador by a member of a right-wing death squad. Anyone who spoke of the plight of the poor, equality, or justice was automatically a communist and enemy of the American Government and consequently the military juntas we placed throughout those nations.

[Michael Tee]

<<A real hero of mine (maybe my only hero, as I don't have many) was shot while consecrating the Eucharist in El Salvador by a member of a right-wing death squad. Anyone who spoke of the plight of the poor, equality, or justice was automatically a communist and enemy of the American Government and consequently the military juntas we placed throughout those nations.>>

Archbishop Romero?

You know, Ruben Blades wrote a song about him, that would make me choke up and cry every time I heard it and the worst was when the Vatican replaced  him with some nameless ass-hole whose only concern was to keep his head down and make no waves.  It was like he vanished into a black hole and his own Church wouldn't do jack-shit to carry on what he started.