Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Apologists for Terror
With the news that Augusto Pinochet had died from a heart attack, thousands of his supporters pored into the streets. His crimes are well known as are the connections to Henry Kissinger, Milton Friedman and the US administration at the time. Juan Augustin Vargas, who stood wearing badges showing Pinochet's face while singing patriotic military songs had this to say: "They don't recognize or thank him for giving us the liberty, the education, the social security and the economic stability we enjoy."
Aside from the moral issues of weighing your bank account against the murder and torture of thousands, the reality is when Pinochet executed his CIA backed coup,Chilean unemployment stood at 4.3% and poverty at 20%. After ten years of "free market modernization" unemployment hit 22%, poverty rates doubled and real wages declined by 40%, just like everywhere else the "Washington Consensus" was imposed. The economy only picked up after the General re-nationalized the copper industry.
Fanatical right-wingers are the same the world over, their reactionary anti-communist zeal blinding them to human-rights atrocities and forcing them into fantastical fascist apologetics. Here is blogger sonia-belles twisted logic: "Kill millions of innocent people and you're a communist hero. Kill 3,000 future Communist tyrants and your a Devil." I guess it was his idea of a pre-emptive strike!
Aside from the moral issues of weighing your bank account against the murder and torture of thousands, the reality is when Pinochet executed his CIA backed coup,Chilean unemployment stood at 4.3% and poverty at 20%. After ten years of "free market modernization" unemployment hit 22%, poverty rates doubled and real wages declined by 40%, just like everywhere else the "Washington Consensus" was imposed. The economy only picked up after the General re-nationalized the copper industry.
Fanatical right-wingers are the same the world over, their reactionary anti-communist zeal blinding them to human-rights atrocities and forcing them into fantastical fascist apologetics. Here is blogger sonia-belles twisted logic: "Kill millions of innocent people and you're a communist hero. Kill 3,000 future Communist tyrants and your a Devil." I guess it was his idea of a pre-emptive strike!
# posted by troutsky @ 12/13/2006 06:15:00 PM
Mrs Thatcher the "great" lady of British politics was reported to be saddened by her friend's. Pinochets death. Must ahve been her sort of dictator.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6167351.stm
