Friday 10 June 2011
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy.
Over the past four decades or so, the Republicans have simply not played by the old give-and-take rules of politics. Indeed, if one were to step back and assess this Republican approach, what you would see is something akin to how the CIA has destabilized target countries, especially those that seek to organize themselves in defiance of capitalist orthodoxy.
To stop this spread of “socialism,” nearly anything goes. Take, for example, Chile in the early 1970s when socialist President Salvador Allende won an election and took steps aimed at improving the conditions of the country’s poor.
Under the direction of President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the CIA was dispatched to engage in psychological warfare against Allende’s government and to make the Chilean economy “scream.”
U.S. intelligence agencies secretly sponsored Chilean news outlets, like the influential newspaper El Mercurio, and supported “populist” uprisings of truckers and housewives. On the economic front, the CIA coordinated efforts to starve the Chilean government of funds and to drive unemployment higher.
Worsening joblessness could then be spun by the CIA-financed news outlets as proof that Allende’s policies didn’t work and that the only choice for Chile was to scrap its social programs. When Allende compromised with the Right, that had the additional benefit of causing friction between him and some of his supporters who wanted even more radical change.
As Chile became increasingly ungovernable, the stage was set for the violent overthrow of Allende, the installation of a rightist dictatorship, and the imposition of “free-market” economics that directed more wealth and power to Chile’s rich and their American corporate backers.
Though the Allende case in Chile is perhaps the best known example of this intelligence strategy (because it was investigated by a Senate committee in the mid-1970s), the CIA has employed this approach frequently around the world. Sometimes the target government is removed without violence, although other times a bloody coup d’etat has been part of the mix.
Home to Roost
So, it is perhaps fitting that a comparable approach to politics would eventually come home to roost in the United States, even to the point that some of the propaganda funding comes from outside sources (think of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times and Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.)
Obviously, given the wealth of the American elites, the relative proportion of the propaganda funding is derived more domestically in the United States than it would be in a place like Chile (or some other unfortunate Third World country that has gotten on Washington’s bad side).
But the concept remains the same: Control as much as possible what the population gets to see and hear; create chaos for your opponent’s government, economically and politically; blame if for the mess; and establish in the minds of the voters that they’re only way out is to submit, that the pain will stop once your side is back in power.
Today’s Republicans have fully embraced this concept of political warfare, whereas the Democrats generally have tried to play by the old rules, acquiescing when Republicans are in office with the goal of “making government work,” even if the Republicans are setting the agenda.
Unlike the Democrats and the Left, the Republicans and the Right have prepared themselves for this battle, almost as if they are following a CIA training manual. They have invested tens of billions of dollars in a propaganda infrastructure that operates 24/7, year-round, to spot and exploit missteps by political enemies.
This vertically integrated media machine allows useful information to move quickly from a right-wing blog to talk radio to Fox News to the Wall Street Journal to conservative magazines and book publishing. Right-wing propagandists are well-trained and well-funded so they can be deployed to all manner of public outlets to hammer home the talking points.
When a Democrat somehow does manage to get into the White House, Republicans in Congress (and even in the Courts) are ready to do their part in the destabilization campaign. Rather than grant traditional “honeymoon” periods of cooperation with the president’s early policies, the battle lines are drawn immediately.
In late 1992, for instance, Bill Clinton complained that his “honeymoon” didn’t even last through the transition, the two-plus months before a new president takes office. He found himself facing especially harsh hazing from the Washington press corps, as the mainstream media – seeking to shed its “liberal” label and goaded by the right-wing media – tried to demonstrate that it would be tougher on a Democrat than any Republican.
The mainstream press hyped minor “scandals” about Clinton’s Whitewater real estate investment and Travel-gate, a flap about some routine firings at the White House travel office. Meanwhile, the Right’s rapidly growing media was spreading false stories implicating Clinton in the death of White House aide Vince Foster and other “mysterious deaths.”
Republicans in Congress did all they could to feed the press hysteria, holding hearings and demanding that special prosecutors be appointed. When the Clinton administration relented, the choice of prosecutors was handed over to right-wing Republican Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle, who consciously picked political enemies of Clinton to oversee zealous investigations.
Finally Winning
The use of scandal-mongering to destabilize the Clinton administration finally peaked in late 1998 and early 1999 when the Republican-controlled House voted impeachment and Clinton had to endure (but survive) a humiliating trial in the Senate.
The Republican strategy, however, continued into Campaign 2000 with Vice President Al Gore facing attacks on his character and integrity. Gore was falsely painted as a delusional braggart, as both right-wing and mainstream media outlets freely misquoted him and subjected him to ridicule (while simultaneously bowing and scraping before Republican candidate George W. Bush).
When Gore managed to win the national popular vote anyway – and would have carried the key state of Florida if all legally cast ballots were counted – the Republicans and the Right rose up in fury demanding that the Florida count be stopped before Bush’s tiny lead completely disappeared. Starting a minor riot in Miami, the Republicans showed how far they would go to claim the White House again.
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Five Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court – wanting to ensure that the new president would keep their side in control of the courts and recognizing that their party was prepared to spread disorder if Gore prevailed – stopped the counting of votes and made Bush the “winner.”
Despite this partisan ruling, Gore and the Democrats stepped back from the political confrontation. The right-wing press cheered and gloated, while the mainstream news media urged the people to accept Bush as “legitimate” for the good of the country.
For most of Bush’s disastrous presidency, this dynamic remained the same. Though barely able to complete a coherent sentence, Bush was treated with great deference, even when he failed to protect the country from the 9/11 attacks and led the nation into an unprovoked war with Iraq. There were no combative investigations of Bush like those that surrounded Clinton.
Even at the end of Bush’s presidency – when his policies of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and massive budget deficits combined to create the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression – the prevailing message from the Establishment was that it was unfair to lay too much blame on Bush.
Shortly after Barack Obama took office in 2009, a Republican/right-wing talking point was to complain when anyone took note of the mess that Bush had left behind: “There you go again, blaming Bush.”
Getting Obama
Immediately, too, the Republicans and the Right set to work demonizing and destroying Obama’s presidency. Instead of allowing the Democrats to enact legislation aimed at addressing the financial and economic crisis, the Senate Republicans launched filibuster after filibuster.
When Obama and the Democrats did push through emergency legislation, such as the $787 billion stimulus package, they had to water it down to reach the 60-vote super-majority. The Republicans and the Right then quickly laid the blame for high unemployment on the “failed” stimulus.
There also were waves of propaganda pounding Obama’s legitimacy. The Right’s news media pressed bogus accusations that Obama had been born in Kenya and thus was not constitutionally eligible to be president. He was denounced as a socialist, a Muslim, a fascist, an enemy of Israel, and pretty much any other charge that might hit some American hot button.
When Obama welcomed American students back to school in 2009, the Right organized against his simple message – urging young people to work hard – as if it were some form of totalitarian mind control. His attempt to address the growing crisis in American health care was denounced as taking away freedoms and imposing “death panels.”
Soon, billionaires like oil man David Koch and media mogul Murdoch, were promoting a “grassroots” rebellion against Obama called the Tea Party. Activists were showing up at presidential speeches with guns and brandishing weapons at rallies near Washington.
The high-decibel disruptions and the “screaming” economy created the impression of political chaos. Largely ignoring the role of the Republicans, the press faulted Obama for failing to live up to his campaign promise to bring greater bipartisanship to Washington.
Hearing the discord framed that way, many average Americans also blamed Obama; many of the President’s supporters grew demoralized; and, as happened with Allende in Chile, some on the Left turned against Obama for not doing more, faster.
By November 2010, the stage was set for a big Republican comeback. The party swept to victory in the House and fell just short in the Senate. But Congress was not the Republicans’ true goal. What they really want is the White House with all its executive powers.
However, following Obama’s success in killing Osama bin Laden on May 2 and with what is widely regarded as a weak Republican presidential field, the Right’s best hope for regaining complete control of the U.S. government in 2012 is to sink the U.S. economy.
Already, the Republican success in limiting the scope of the stimulus package and then labeling it a failure – combined with deep cuts in local, state and federal government spending – have helped push the economy back to the brink where a double-dip recession is now a serious concern.
Despite these worries – and a warning from Moody’s about a possible downgrade on U.S. debt if Congress delays action on raising the debt limit – the Republicans are vowing more brinksmanship over the debt-limit vote. Before acting, they are demanding major reductions in government spending (while refusing to raise taxes on the rich).
A Conundrum
So, Obama and the Democrats face another conundrum. If they slash spending too much, they will further stall the recovery. However, if they refuse to submit to this latest round of Republican blackmail, they risk a debt crisis that could have devastating consequences for the U.S. economy for years – even decades – to come.
Either way, the right-wing media and much of the mainstream press will put the blame on Obama and the Democrats. They will be held accountable for failing to govern.
The Republican propaganda machine will tell the American people that they must throw Obama and the Democrats out of office for stability to return. There will be assurances about how the “magic of the market” will bring back the bright days of prosperity.
Of course, the reality of a new Republican administration, especially with a GOP Congress, would be the return of the old right-wing nostrums: more tax cuts for the rich, less regulation of corporations, more military spending, and more privatization of social programs.
Any budget balancing will come at the expense of labor rights for union employees and shifting the costs for health care onto the backs of the elderly. Yet, all this will be surrounded by intense propaganda explaining the public pain as a hangover from misguided government “social engineering.”
There is, of course, the possibility that the American people will see through today’s Republican CIA-style strategy of “making the economy scream.” Americans might come to recognize the role of the pseudo-populist propagandists on Fox News and talk radio.
Or Republicans might have second thoughts about playing chicken on the debt limit and running the risk of a global depression. Such a gamble could redound against them. And, it’s hard to believe that even their most ardent billionaire-backers would find destruction of their stock portfolios that appealing.
But there can be a momentum to madness. We have seen throughout history that events can get out of hand, that thoroughly propagandized true believers can truly believe. Sometimes, they don’t understand they are simply being manipulated for a lesser goal. Once the chaos starts, it is hard to restore order.
That has been another bloody lesson from the CIA’s operations in countries around the world. These covert actions can have excessive or unintended consequences.
Ousting Allende turned Chile into a fascist dictatorship that sent assassins far and wide, including Washington, D.C. Ousting Mossadegh in Iran led to the tyranny of the Shah and ultimately to an extreme Islamist backlash. Ousting Arbenz in Guatemala led to the butchery of some 200,000 people and the rise of a narco-state. Such examples can go on and on.
However, these CIA-type techniques can be very seductive, both to U.S. presidents looking for a quick fix to some international problem and to a political party trying to gain a decisive edge for winning. These methods can be especially dangerous when the other side doesn’t organize effectively to counter them.
The hard reality in the United States today is that the Republicans and the Right are now fully organized, armed with a potent propaganda machine and possessing an extraordinary political will. They are well-positioned to roll the U.S. economy off the cliff and blame the catastrophe on Obama.
Indeed, that may be their best hope for winning Election 2012.
Showing posts with label Chile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chile. Show all posts
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Aflockalypse Now
Probably the strangest story of the new year is the pattern of mass deaths around the world of birds, fish and other creatures. It is so perplexing, CNN's Anderson Cooper brought on his show noted scientist Kirk Cameron to answer questions about this wacky fad. The cases are so bizarre, Gawker.com has as a headline for it's report on the subject: "Is This the End of the World?"
Here are some of the examples:
"Up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky New Year's Eve in Beebe, Arkansas"
"500 birds found dead in southern Louisiana in seemingly separate incident"
Falling birds likely died from massive trauma
January 4, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/03/arkansas.falling.birds/index.html
"As officials worked to figure out the cause of death of some 5,000 blackbirds that fell from the Arkansas sky this weekend, some 100 miles away another disaster was unfolding: The discovery of 100,000 dead drum fish in the Arkansas River..."
100,000 dead fish join thousands of dead birds in Arkansas
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/2000-dead-birds-fall-sky-arkansas
Hundreds More Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Kentucky
1/5/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/hundreds-more-dead-birds-_n_804952.html
Dead Birds Found In Sweden
1/5/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/dead-birds-sweden_n_804600.html
"Thousands of dead fish were floating in Volusia County Tuesday. They were all in Spruce Creek in Port Orange. The fish kill is unusual because it is warm, according to people who live along the creek.
It's been a week since there were freezing temperatures, but there are fish lining the banks. Some said it's the worst kill they've ever seen; thousands of fish lined the twists and turns of Spruce Creek."
Thousands Of Fish Dead In Spruce Creek
January 4, 2011
http://www.wftv.com/news/26367953/detail.html
"To add more to the mystery, a report came out today that around 1,500 endangered and protected ‘Sooty Shearwater’ (Puffinus griseus) birds have been found dead in the coast of Chile."
Arkansas & Chile: Dead Birds & Fish
Javier Ortega
January 4, 2011
http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/01/04/arkansas-chile-dead-birds-fish
"Countless turtle doves were found scattered in the streets, in flower beds and hanging tragically from trees 'like Christmas balls' in the town of Faenza. Many of the birds that fell dead from the sky were discovered with a mysterious blue stain in their beaks."
Birds Dying In Italy: Thousands Of Turtle Doves Fall Dead From Sky
Travis Walter Donovan
1-6-11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/birds-dying-in-italy-thou_n_805541.html
"The Thanet shoreline is littered with the crabs, along with dead starfish, lobsters, sponges and anemones."
40,000 crabs join slew of animal-death mysteries
Jenni Dunning
Jan 6, 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/916503--40-000-crabs-join-slew-of-animal-death-mysteries
2 million fish found dead in Maryland
January 7, 2011
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/maryland.fish.kill
Major, Bizarre Fish Die-Off Along Lakefront
January 11, 2011
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/01/11/major-bizarre-fish-die-off-along-lakefront
The more popular explanations for these mass deaths on the Internet have been the testing of biological weapons and/or HAARP technologies. One Website, WhatDoesItMean.com, linked the mystery death of John P. Wheeler III, an aide to Reagan and both Bushes, to the mass animal deaths. While the mainstream media focused in its obits on his fundraising for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the site noted his "military career included writing one of the most important manuals on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons." Wheeler certainly fits the profile of an honest whistleblower, and this may explain why he was found dead in a Delaware landfill in a style more fitting of a Mafia squealer than a Washington insider.
Top US Official Murdered After Arkansas Weapons Test Causes Mass Death
Sorcha Faal
January 4, 2011
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1435.htm
Here are some of the examples:
"Up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky New Year's Eve in Beebe, Arkansas"
"500 birds found dead in southern Louisiana in seemingly separate incident"
Falling birds likely died from massive trauma
January 4, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/03/arkansas.falling.birds/index.html
"As officials worked to figure out the cause of death of some 5,000 blackbirds that fell from the Arkansas sky this weekend, some 100 miles away another disaster was unfolding: The discovery of 100,000 dead drum fish in the Arkansas River..."
100,000 dead fish join thousands of dead birds in Arkansas
Monday, January 3rd, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/2000-dead-birds-fall-sky-arkansas
Hundreds More Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Kentucky
1/5/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/hundreds-more-dead-birds-_n_804952.html
Dead Birds Found In Sweden
1/5/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/dead-birds-sweden_n_804600.html
"Thousands of dead fish were floating in Volusia County Tuesday. They were all in Spruce Creek in Port Orange. The fish kill is unusual because it is warm, according to people who live along the creek.
It's been a week since there were freezing temperatures, but there are fish lining the banks. Some said it's the worst kill they've ever seen; thousands of fish lined the twists and turns of Spruce Creek."
Thousands Of Fish Dead In Spruce Creek
January 4, 2011
http://www.wftv.com/news/26367953/detail.html
"To add more to the mystery, a report came out today that around 1,500 endangered and protected ‘Sooty Shearwater’ (Puffinus griseus) birds have been found dead in the coast of Chile."
Arkansas & Chile: Dead Birds & Fish
Javier Ortega
January 4, 2011
http://www.ghosttheory.com/2011/01/04/arkansas-chile-dead-birds-fish
"Countless turtle doves were found scattered in the streets, in flower beds and hanging tragically from trees 'like Christmas balls' in the town of Faenza. Many of the birds that fell dead from the sky were discovered with a mysterious blue stain in their beaks."
Birds Dying In Italy: Thousands Of Turtle Doves Fall Dead From Sky
Travis Walter Donovan
1-6-11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/birds-dying-in-italy-thou_n_805541.html
"The Thanet shoreline is littered with the crabs, along with dead starfish, lobsters, sponges and anemones."
40,000 crabs join slew of animal-death mysteries
Jenni Dunning
Jan 6, 2011
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/916503--40-000-crabs-join-slew-of-animal-death-mysteries
2 million fish found dead in Maryland
January 7, 2011
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/maryland.fish.kill
Major, Bizarre Fish Die-Off Along Lakefront
January 11, 2011
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/01/11/major-bizarre-fish-die-off-along-lakefront
The more popular explanations for these mass deaths on the Internet have been the testing of biological weapons and/or HAARP technologies. One Website, WhatDoesItMean.com, linked the mystery death of John P. Wheeler III, an aide to Reagan and both Bushes, to the mass animal deaths. While the mainstream media focused in its obits on his fundraising for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the site noted his "military career included writing one of the most important manuals on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons." Wheeler certainly fits the profile of an honest whistleblower, and this may explain why he was found dead in a Delaware landfill in a style more fitting of a Mafia squealer than a Washington insider.
Top US Official Murdered After Arkansas Weapons Test Causes Mass Death
Sorcha Faal
January 4, 2011
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1435.htm
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Chile's Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued
http://www.truth-out.org/chiles-ghosts-are-not-being-rescued64160
Chile's Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued
Wednesday 13 October 2010
John Pilger, t r u t h o u t
The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a facade.
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile and is the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile's privatized mines. The San Jose mine, where the trapped men work, became so unsafe in 2007 it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labor department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies," but the minister took no action. Six days later, the men were entombed.
For all the media circus at the rescue site, contemporary Chile is a country of the unspoken. At the Villa Grimaldi, in the suburbs of the capital Santiago, a sign says: "The forgotten past is full of memory." This was the torture center where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that General Pinochet and his business allies brought to Chile. Its ghostly presence is overseen by the beauty of the Andes, and the man who unlocks the gate used to live nearby and remembers the screams.
I was taken there one wintry morning in 2006 by Sara De Witt, who was imprisoned as a student activist and now lives in London. She was electrocuted and beaten, yet survived. Later, we drove to the home of Salvador Allende, the great democrat and reformer who perished when Pinochet seized power on 11 September 1973 - Latin America's own 9/11. His house is a silent white building without a sign or a plaque.
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Everywhere, it seems, Allende's name has been eliminated. Only in the lone memorial in the cemetery are the words engraved "Presidente de la Republica" as part of a remembrance of the "ejecutados Politicos": those "executed for political reasons."
Allende died by his own hand while Pinochet bombed the presidential palace with British planes as the American ambassador watched.
Today, Chile is a democracy, though many would dispute that, notably those in the barrios forced to scavenge for food and steal electricity. In 1990, Pinochet bequeathed a constitutionally compromised system as a condition of his retirement and the military's withdrawal to the political shadows. This ensures that the broadly reformist parties, known as Concertacion, are permanently divided or drawn into legitimizing the economic designs of the heirs of the dictator. At the last election, the right-wing Coalition for Change, the creation of Pinochet's ideologue Jaime Guzman, took power under President Sebastian Piñera. The bloody extinction of true democracy that began with the death of Allende was, by stealth, complete.
Piñera is a billionaire who controls a slice of the mining, energy and retail industries. He made his fortune in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup and during the free-market "experiments" of the zealots from the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys. His brother and former business partner, Jose Piñera, a labor minister under Pinochet, privatized mining and state pensions and all but destroyed the trade unions. This was applauded in Washington as an "economic miracle," a model of the new cult of neoliberalism that would sweep the continent and ensure control from the north.
Today. Chile is critical to President Barack Obama's rollback of the independent democracies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Piñera's closest ally is Washington's main man, Juan Manuel Santos, the new president of Colombia, home to seven US bases and an infamous human rights record familiar to Chileans who suffered under Pinochet's terror.
Post-Pinochet Chile has kept its own enduring abuses in shadow. The families still attempting to recover from the torture or disappearance of a loved one bear the prejudice of the state and employers. Those not silent are the Mapuche people, the only indigenous nation the Spanish conquistadors could not defeat. In the late 19th century, the European settlers of an independent Chile waged their racist War of Extermination against the Mapuche who were left as impoverished outsiders. During Allende's thousand days in power, this began to change. Some Mapuche lands were returned and a debt of justice was recognized.
Since then, a vicious, largely unreported war has been waged against the Mapuche. Forestry corporations have been allowed to take their land, and their resistance has been met with murders, disappearances and arbitrary prosecutions under "anti terrorism" laws enacted by the dictatorship. In their campaigns of civil disobedience, none of the Mapuche has harmed anyone. The mere accusation of a landowner or businessman that the Mapuche "might" trespass on their own ancestral lands is often enough for the police to charge them with offenses that lead to Kafkaesque trials with faceless witnesses and prison sentences of up to 20 years. They are, in effect, political prisoners.
While the world rejoices at the spectacle of the miners' rescue, 38 Mapuche hunger strikers have not been news. They are demanding an end to the Pinochet laws used against them, such as "terrorist arson," and the justice of a real democracy. On 9 October, all but one of the hunger strikers ended their protest after 90 days without food. A young Mapuche, Luis Marileo, says he will go on. On 18 October, President Piñera is due to give a lecture on "current events" at the London School of Economics. He should be reminded of their ordeal and why.
Chile's Ghosts Are Not Being Rescued
Wednesday 13 October 2010
John Pilger, t r u t h o u t
The rescue of 33 miners in Chile is an extraordinary drama filled with pathos and heroism. It is also a media windfall for the Chilean government, whose every beneficence is recorded by a forest of cameras. One cannot fail to be impressed. However, like all great media events, it is a facade.
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile and is the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile's privatized mines. The San Jose mine, where the trapped men work, became so unsafe in 2007 it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labor department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies," but the minister took no action. Six days later, the men were entombed.
For all the media circus at the rescue site, contemporary Chile is a country of the unspoken. At the Villa Grimaldi, in the suburbs of the capital Santiago, a sign says: "The forgotten past is full of memory." This was the torture center where hundreds of people were murdered and disappeared for opposing the fascism that General Pinochet and his business allies brought to Chile. Its ghostly presence is overseen by the beauty of the Andes, and the man who unlocks the gate used to live nearby and remembers the screams.
I was taken there one wintry morning in 2006 by Sara De Witt, who was imprisoned as a student activist and now lives in London. She was electrocuted and beaten, yet survived. Later, we drove to the home of Salvador Allende, the great democrat and reformer who perished when Pinochet seized power on 11 September 1973 - Latin America's own 9/11. His house is a silent white building without a sign or a plaque.
Stay informed with free Truthout updates delivered straight to your email inbox. Click here to sign up.
Everywhere, it seems, Allende's name has been eliminated. Only in the lone memorial in the cemetery are the words engraved "Presidente de la Republica" as part of a remembrance of the "ejecutados Politicos": those "executed for political reasons."
Allende died by his own hand while Pinochet bombed the presidential palace with British planes as the American ambassador watched.
Today, Chile is a democracy, though many would dispute that, notably those in the barrios forced to scavenge for food and steal electricity. In 1990, Pinochet bequeathed a constitutionally compromised system as a condition of his retirement and the military's withdrawal to the political shadows. This ensures that the broadly reformist parties, known as Concertacion, are permanently divided or drawn into legitimizing the economic designs of the heirs of the dictator. At the last election, the right-wing Coalition for Change, the creation of Pinochet's ideologue Jaime Guzman, took power under President Sebastian Piñera. The bloody extinction of true democracy that began with the death of Allende was, by stealth, complete.
Piñera is a billionaire who controls a slice of the mining, energy and retail industries. He made his fortune in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup and during the free-market "experiments" of the zealots from the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys. His brother and former business partner, Jose Piñera, a labor minister under Pinochet, privatized mining and state pensions and all but destroyed the trade unions. This was applauded in Washington as an "economic miracle," a model of the new cult of neoliberalism that would sweep the continent and ensure control from the north.
Today. Chile is critical to President Barack Obama's rollback of the independent democracies in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. Piñera's closest ally is Washington's main man, Juan Manuel Santos, the new president of Colombia, home to seven US bases and an infamous human rights record familiar to Chileans who suffered under Pinochet's terror.
Post-Pinochet Chile has kept its own enduring abuses in shadow. The families still attempting to recover from the torture or disappearance of a loved one bear the prejudice of the state and employers. Those not silent are the Mapuche people, the only indigenous nation the Spanish conquistadors could not defeat. In the late 19th century, the European settlers of an independent Chile waged their racist War of Extermination against the Mapuche who were left as impoverished outsiders. During Allende's thousand days in power, this began to change. Some Mapuche lands were returned and a debt of justice was recognized.
Since then, a vicious, largely unreported war has been waged against the Mapuche. Forestry corporations have been allowed to take their land, and their resistance has been met with murders, disappearances and arbitrary prosecutions under "anti terrorism" laws enacted by the dictatorship. In their campaigns of civil disobedience, none of the Mapuche has harmed anyone. The mere accusation of a landowner or businessman that the Mapuche "might" trespass on their own ancestral lands is often enough for the police to charge them with offenses that lead to Kafkaesque trials with faceless witnesses and prison sentences of up to 20 years. They are, in effect, political prisoners.
While the world rejoices at the spectacle of the miners' rescue, 38 Mapuche hunger strikers have not been news. They are demanding an end to the Pinochet laws used against them, such as "terrorist arson," and the justice of a real democracy. On 9 October, all but one of the hunger strikers ended their protest after 90 days without food. A young Mapuche, Luis Marileo, says he will go on. On 18 October, President Piñera is due to give a lecture on "current events" at the London School of Economics. He should be reminded of their ordeal and why.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Chile’s Ghosts: The Tyranny of Forgetting
http://towardfreedom.com/americas/2102-chiles-ghosts-the-tyranny-of-forgetting
Chile’s Ghosts: The Tyranny of Forgetting
Monday, 13 September 2010
Benjamin Dangl
Late in the afternoon on September 4th, 1970 a crowd gathered in central Santiago, Chile to celebrate the election of socialist president Salvador Allende. Among the participants in the celebration were the leftist folk singer Victor Jara and his wife Joan.
In her book, Victor: An Unfinished Song, Joan Jara recounts this scene “full of happiness, hugs and tears.” People pushed through the crowd, eager to congratulate Allende. When Joan neared the president-elect she remembers embracing him in a cathartic, bear-like hug. Allende said to her, “Hug me harder, compañera! This is not a time for timidity!”
The hope of that day ended in bloodshed just three years later. On September 11th, 1973 Allende was overthrown in a US-backed coup. The military dictator Augusto Pinochet took power, and led the country in a reign of terror which left thousands dead, tortured and traumatized. Among the coup’s victims were Victor Jara and Allende.
As part of the crackdown, armed forces searched the home of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda told the soldiers, “Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry.” He died days later of heart failure, on September 23rd.
Though the dictator and many of his accomplices have escaped justice – Pinochet died in 2006 at age 91 – the horrors of Pinochet’s reign are widely documented. The book Clandestine in Chile: The Adventure of Miguel Littín by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, tells the story of Littín’s 1985 return to Chile after living in exile since the coup. The story was told from Littín’s perspective.
Hunkered down in the Basque city of San Sebastián, the leftist laments cutting off his beard in preparation for his return to Chile under a new identity. “The first thing to go was my beard. This was not just a simple matter of shaving. The beard had created a personality for me that I now had to shed.” To cushion the shock, he took the beard off gradually.
Reflecting on Chile under Pinochet, Littín remembers the tireless struggle of coal miner Sebastián Acevedo, who fought to end the torture of his twenty-two-year-old son and twenty-year-old daughter. The desperate Acevedo ultimately warned public officials, journalists and religious leaders, “If you don't do something to stop the torture of my children, I will soak myself with gasoline and set myself on fire in the atrium of the [Concepción] cathedral.” Acevedo followed through with the threat, and became a haunting symbol of the fight against the dictatorship.
Non-violent demonstrations against Pinochet’s crimes followed the death of Acevedo. Littín described the confrontation. “The police attacked the group [of protesters] with water canons while more than two hundred of them, soaked to the skin, stood impassively against a wall, singing hymns of love."
Before he left the country in 1973, soldier’s burned Littín’s books in a bonfire constructed in the garden of his home. Over a decade later, in 1986, Pinochet was still burning books. The dictator himself ordered 15,000 copies of Clandestine in Chile to be destroyed.
On September 11, 2010, over six thousand people gathered to mark the anniversary of the coup. Participants converged in homage to the victims of the dictatorship, as well as to demand justice and respect for human rights under the current Sebastián Piñera administration. Chile’s right wing President Piñera, one of the wealthiest people in the country, did not participate in the acts that commemorated the start of the dictatorship.
“We are living under a right wing regime which participated in the dictatorship and even today is justifying the [dictatorship’s] human rights violations,” Mireya García, the vice president of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared, told Telesur.
Some members of Piñera's administration also worked in the Pinochet dictatorship and have not been brought to justice for their crimes. Speaking of the 37th anniversary of the September 11th coup, Piñera said that Chileans should move beyond the conflicts of the past. “We should not remain trapped in the same fights and divisions.”
Allende warned against the tyranny of forgetting. In his final radio broadcast to the Chilean people, the president condemned the coup plotters, “I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”
Benjamin Dangl is the author of the forthcoming book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press, October 2010) and The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events and UpsideDownWorld.org, covering activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl@gmail.com.
Chile’s Ghosts: The Tyranny of Forgetting
Monday, 13 September 2010
Benjamin Dangl
Late in the afternoon on September 4th, 1970 a crowd gathered in central Santiago, Chile to celebrate the election of socialist president Salvador Allende. Among the participants in the celebration were the leftist folk singer Victor Jara and his wife Joan.
In her book, Victor: An Unfinished Song, Joan Jara recounts this scene “full of happiness, hugs and tears.” People pushed through the crowd, eager to congratulate Allende. When Joan neared the president-elect she remembers embracing him in a cathartic, bear-like hug. Allende said to her, “Hug me harder, compañera! This is not a time for timidity!”
The hope of that day ended in bloodshed just three years later. On September 11th, 1973 Allende was overthrown in a US-backed coup. The military dictator Augusto Pinochet took power, and led the country in a reign of terror which left thousands dead, tortured and traumatized. Among the coup’s victims were Victor Jara and Allende.
As part of the crackdown, armed forces searched the home of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda told the soldiers, “Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry.” He died days later of heart failure, on September 23rd.
Though the dictator and many of his accomplices have escaped justice – Pinochet died in 2006 at age 91 – the horrors of Pinochet’s reign are widely documented. The book Clandestine in Chile: The Adventure of Miguel Littín by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, tells the story of Littín’s 1985 return to Chile after living in exile since the coup. The story was told from Littín’s perspective.
Hunkered down in the Basque city of San Sebastián, the leftist laments cutting off his beard in preparation for his return to Chile under a new identity. “The first thing to go was my beard. This was not just a simple matter of shaving. The beard had created a personality for me that I now had to shed.” To cushion the shock, he took the beard off gradually.
Reflecting on Chile under Pinochet, Littín remembers the tireless struggle of coal miner Sebastián Acevedo, who fought to end the torture of his twenty-two-year-old son and twenty-year-old daughter. The desperate Acevedo ultimately warned public officials, journalists and religious leaders, “If you don't do something to stop the torture of my children, I will soak myself with gasoline and set myself on fire in the atrium of the [Concepción] cathedral.” Acevedo followed through with the threat, and became a haunting symbol of the fight against the dictatorship.
Non-violent demonstrations against Pinochet’s crimes followed the death of Acevedo. Littín described the confrontation. “The police attacked the group [of protesters] with water canons while more than two hundred of them, soaked to the skin, stood impassively against a wall, singing hymns of love."
Before he left the country in 1973, soldier’s burned Littín’s books in a bonfire constructed in the garden of his home. Over a decade later, in 1986, Pinochet was still burning books. The dictator himself ordered 15,000 copies of Clandestine in Chile to be destroyed.
On September 11, 2010, over six thousand people gathered to mark the anniversary of the coup. Participants converged in homage to the victims of the dictatorship, as well as to demand justice and respect for human rights under the current Sebastián Piñera administration. Chile’s right wing President Piñera, one of the wealthiest people in the country, did not participate in the acts that commemorated the start of the dictatorship.
“We are living under a right wing regime which participated in the dictatorship and even today is justifying the [dictatorship’s] human rights violations,” Mireya García, the vice president of the Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared, told Telesur.
Some members of Piñera's administration also worked in the Pinochet dictatorship and have not been brought to justice for their crimes. Speaking of the 37th anniversary of the September 11th coup, Piñera said that Chileans should move beyond the conflicts of the past. “We should not remain trapped in the same fights and divisions.”
Allende warned against the tyranny of forgetting. In his final radio broadcast to the Chilean people, the president condemned the coup plotters, “I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.”
Benjamin Dangl is the author of the forthcoming book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press, October 2010) and The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events and UpsideDownWorld.org, covering activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl@gmail.com.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
New 'super-Earth' found in space
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6589157.stm
New 'super-Earth' found in space
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface.
The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.
Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile.
They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life.
"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this 'super-Earth' lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.
'Is there life anywhere else?' is a fundamental question we all ask
Alison Boyle
London Science Museum
"Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or covered with oceans."
Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University, added: "Liquid water is critical to life as we know it."
He believes the planet may now become a very important target for future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life.
These missions will put telescopes in space that can discern the tell-tale light "signatures" that might be associated with biological processes.
The observatories would seek to identify trace atmospheric gases such as methane, and even markers for chlorophyll, the pigment in Earth plants that plays a critical role in photosynthesis.
'Indirect' detection
The exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun - is the smallest yet found, and has been given the designation Gliese 581 c.
It completes a full orbit of its parent star in just 13 days.
EXOPLANET GLIESE 581 C
Mass: Five times Earth's mass
Orbit: 13 days
Temperature: 0C - 40C
Distance: 20.5 light years
Constellation: Libra
Indeed, it is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is to our Sun.
However, given that the host star is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet nevertheless lies in the "habitable zone", the region around a star where water could be liquid.
Gliese 581 c was identified at the European Southern Observatory (Eso) facility at La Silla in the Atacama Desert.
To make their discovery, researchers used a very sensitive instrument that can measure tiny changes in the velocity of a star as it experiences the gravitational tug of a nearby planet.
Astronomers are stuck with such indirect methods of detection because current telescope technology struggles to image very distant and faint objects - especially when they orbit close to the glare of a star.
The Gliese 581 system has now yielded three planets: the new super-Earth, a 15 Earth-mass planet (Gliese 581 b) orbiting even closer to the parent star, and an eight Earth-mass planet that lies further out (Gliese 581 d).
The latest discovery has created tremendous excitement among scientists.
Of the more than 200 exoplanets so far discovered, a great many are Jupiter-like gas giants that experience blazing temperatures because they orbit close in to much hotter stars.
The Gliese 581 super-Earth is in what scientists also sometimes call the "Goldilocks Zone", where temperatures "are just right" for life to have a chance to exist.
Commenting on the discovery, Alison Boyle, the curator of astronomy at London's Science Museum, said: "Of all the planets we've found around other stars, this is the one that looks as though it might have the right ingredients for life.
"It's 20 light-years away and so we won't be going there anytime soon, but with new kinds of propulsion technology that could change in the future. And obviously we'll be training some powerful telescopes on it to see what we can see," she told BBC News.
"'Is there life anywhere else?' is a fundamental question we all ask."
Professor Glenn White at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is helping to develop the European Space Agency's Darwin mission, which will scan the nearby Universe, looking for signs of life on Earth-like planets. He said: "This is an important step in the search for true Earth-like exoplanets.
"As the methods become more and more refined, astronomers are narrowing in on the ultimate goal - the detection of a true Earth-like planet elsewhere.
"Obviously this newly discovered planet and its companions in the Gliese 581 system will become prominent targets for missions like Esa's Darwin and Nasa's Terrestrial planet Finder when they fly in about a decade."
The discovery is reported in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
New 'super-Earth' found in space
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface.
The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.
Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile.
They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life.
"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this 'super-Earth' lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the result.
'Is there life anywhere else?' is a fundamental question we all ask
Alison Boyle
London Science Museum
"Moreover, its radius should be only 1.5 times the Earth's radius, and models predict that the planet should be either rocky - like our Earth - or covered with oceans."
Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University, added: "Liquid water is critical to life as we know it."
He believes the planet may now become a very important target for future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life.
These missions will put telescopes in space that can discern the tell-tale light "signatures" that might be associated with biological processes.
The observatories would seek to identify trace atmospheric gases such as methane, and even markers for chlorophyll, the pigment in Earth plants that plays a critical role in photosynthesis.
'Indirect' detection
The exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun - is the smallest yet found, and has been given the designation Gliese 581 c.
It completes a full orbit of its parent star in just 13 days.
EXOPLANET GLIESE 581 C
Mass: Five times Earth's mass
Orbit: 13 days
Temperature: 0C - 40C
Distance: 20.5 light years
Constellation: Libra
Indeed, it is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is to our Sun.
However, given that the host star is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet nevertheless lies in the "habitable zone", the region around a star where water could be liquid.
Gliese 581 c was identified at the European Southern Observatory (Eso) facility at La Silla in the Atacama Desert.
To make their discovery, researchers used a very sensitive instrument that can measure tiny changes in the velocity of a star as it experiences the gravitational tug of a nearby planet.
Astronomers are stuck with such indirect methods of detection because current telescope technology struggles to image very distant and faint objects - especially when they orbit close to the glare of a star.
The Gliese 581 system has now yielded three planets: the new super-Earth, a 15 Earth-mass planet (Gliese 581 b) orbiting even closer to the parent star, and an eight Earth-mass planet that lies further out (Gliese 581 d).
The latest discovery has created tremendous excitement among scientists.
Of the more than 200 exoplanets so far discovered, a great many are Jupiter-like gas giants that experience blazing temperatures because they orbit close in to much hotter stars.
The Gliese 581 super-Earth is in what scientists also sometimes call the "Goldilocks Zone", where temperatures "are just right" for life to have a chance to exist.
Commenting on the discovery, Alison Boyle, the curator of astronomy at London's Science Museum, said: "Of all the planets we've found around other stars, this is the one that looks as though it might have the right ingredients for life.
"It's 20 light-years away and so we won't be going there anytime soon, but with new kinds of propulsion technology that could change in the future. And obviously we'll be training some powerful telescopes on it to see what we can see," she told BBC News.
"'Is there life anywhere else?' is a fundamental question we all ask."
Professor Glenn White at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is helping to develop the European Space Agency's Darwin mission, which will scan the nearby Universe, looking for signs of life on Earth-like planets. He said: "This is an important step in the search for true Earth-like exoplanets.
"As the methods become more and more refined, astronomers are narrowing in on the ultimate goal - the detection of a true Earth-like planet elsewhere.
"Obviously this newly discovered planet and its companions in the Gliese 581 system will become prominent targets for missions like Esa's Darwin and Nasa's Terrestrial planet Finder when they fly in about a decade."
The discovery is reported in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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