I'd pick the shameful events of Sept. 11, 1973 and it's aftermath.
Nixon and Kissinger gave their tacit approval for the overthrow of the legally elected and popular President of Chile Salvador Allende and on 9-11-1973 the Chilean military under Augusto Pinochet murdered Allende. Pinochet then began a campaign of torture and repression that lasted for years and years. Under Pinochet's regime people who opposed his views were systematically kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.
The question then is why did Pinochet do all this mayhem and murder with the approval and help of the Nixon administration? The answer is that it was done to force a disastrous economic system down the throats of Chileans. This economic system was the brainchild of Milton Friedman and his cronies at the University of Chicago. Chile under Allende was too socialist in their view and there was not enough foreign, i.e. American, corporations doing business in the country, or so Friedman believed. They convinced Pinochet to cut social spending to the bone, to open up all markets to American and European corporations, and to cut price controls on things like food and utilities. They also saw to it that most every business and industry that the Chilean government owned was sold off and privatized.
The people did not want any of this. They wanted Allende and his program of modified socialism. So Pinochet had to use force and torture and intimidation and murder to get the Chicago School plan implemented. Nixon and Kissinger and American corporations like Ford Motor Company and ITT all helped Pinochet rape, murder, torture, and terrorize his people.
The whole sordid story has been laid out in full detail in Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine. I'm about half way through it and I highly recommend it. I'm not kidding when i say it's probably one of the most important books I have ever read.
Thanks for sending in that question Steph!
I'm answering one question every day in January so send in what ever question you might have. I answer most anything as long as you send it in via email to me at monkeymuckATgmailDOTcom.
13 comments:
What an excellent question and great answer!
Brilliant question and brilliant answer! You go my monkey!
Here is a great film about that place and time, which even my addled perimenopausal brain thinks it told you about before.
Ahem. That's Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger. Get it right. Sheesh!
Your insinuation of a linkage between Milton Friedman's views on free markets and the torture that took place in Chile is very misleading and completely unsubstantiated.
And how do you make the assessment that the economic system being 'forced down their throats' was disastrous?
Glad you're liking The Shock Doctrine. I am also half way through it and last night as I was reading about a created "crisis" in Canada in 1993, I also thought that this is one of the most important books I've read, too, and it should totally be required reading for some group of impressionable people...like maybe grade 11 and 12s.
Gator-The fact is Pincochet had all the people he could think of who would oppose his economic reforms rounded up and imprisoned, tortured, and or murdered. They did this to union leaders, union members, leaders of left leaning organizations, and student leaders. It's all documented in the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Comission report and by many of the people who made it out alive. At one point the human rights violations got so bad some in the world community called for a business boycott of Chile and it's products, which would have been just the opposite of what Freidman and his gang of thugs wanted.
Now as for why the Freidman plan was disastrous, one needs to only look at the mass unemployment of that time, the repression of workers rights, the out of control inflation that occured after the plan was implemented. The Chilean people suffered from the state sponsored terrorism of Pinochet and they suffered from the economic policies he forced upon them. The only people who benefitted from Freidman's and Pinochet's policies were the ultra rich, the well paid advisors from the University of Chicago, and the corporations who raped and abused the now docile Chilean workforce.
You need to leanr the real history behind things before you inform me I am misleading. I know the history behind this hameful event in world history. Posts like this come as a shock to people who only get their news from the corporate media. But when one goes to the source of these events and listens to the people who actually lived through them, one then gets the real story.
I hope you'll come back to my blog so that I can teach you all the other things that the corporate media and the powers that be don't want you to know.
Gator80: I second Dr. MVM. You are being willfully naive. Chile is one of the dark, dark chapters of American history.
I have feeling that this question has at least one hundred answers, each one far darker than the last.
Also don't forget the killing of US citizens in Chile by Pinochet and the killing of Orlando Letelier in Washington, DC by either Chilean intelligence with CIA help or by the CIA itself. I did a whole press release on the Letelier case when I was in college and also was mentioned on the floor of Congress for some writing I did on the Letelier case.
Yeah this was definitely a dark period in Chilean and US history.
Monk,
It's great that you are such an expert in history! I guess we share a belief that we can learn a lot from history.
Unfortunately I don't think you read my post very carefully. I did not say anything in defense of Pinochet, who was a brutal tyrant. My problem is the way you slander Milton Friedman. Since I apparently have been falsely educated by the 'corporate media,' perhaps you could enlighten me as to exactly what Friedman's role was in Chile. Maybe you could even provide specifics?
As for your analysis of Friedman's 'disastrous' plan, with the 'mass unemployment...repression of workers rights...out of control inflation,' a couple of questions:
- what was the situation prior to the reforms?
- after the reforms how did Chile's performance compare with other Latin American countries?
- what exactly is it about free markets that leads to unemployment, repression and inflation? And why has that not been the experience in the US, West Europe, and Asia countries which are primarily capitalist?
I am really looking forward to learning from a real historian!
Gator-The specifics are in Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine." I suggest you read it and you'll discover the real story behind Milton Freidman and his so called "economic miracles."
As for your question about why mass unemployment, repression of workers rights, and inflation that sprials out of control don't happen here or in Europe anymore, it's simple. We don't allow the unbridled "Friedmanism" that was unleashed in the South American countries to happen here. As a matter of fact while Nixon was helping Pinochet brutalize Chile with Friedman's economic theories he was imposing price and wage controls here at home, much to the chagrin of Friedman.
The situation in most of the South American countries before the coup of 9-11-73 was those countries were protectionist, something Friedman and the Chicago school hated. Major north American and European corporations were excluded from dong business there because the governments in charge in South America said, and rightly so, that they wanted South American companies that employed South Americans to have the lion's share of the business. Also they wanted a measure of governmental control over certain inudstries, such as health care and utilities. Freidman and the Chicago school said thatthe borders should be open to all and that the governments should not have control over any businesses, even the utilities. When the outside corporations came in the local businesses could not compete and they had to lay off thousands. Most of those people had to find work making a fraction of what they made before, if they found jobs at all.
One result of Friedmanism was the rapid increase in the drug trade in South America. Many out of work people started growing the plant that cocaine is made out of and many joined the drug cartels.
The thing about unrestrained free markets is that they have no social conscience and no care for humans. Economists tell us we ned to let the market sort out problems but that's not whatthe free market does, the free market exists to make money for people in the market. Millions of people are not in the market yet their lives are affected by it everyday.
Great post!
OH MY GOD.
Gator80: I have to agree 100% with Dr. Monkey here - read The Shock Doctrine. Not only is the book an excellent resource in and of itself, but it is meticulously researched and footnoted, so every assertion Klein makes has a reference you can look up for yourself - if you're so inclined.
Dr. Monkey: Have you gotten to chapter 14 yet? I knew Rumsfeld was evil but I had no idea just how evil he was until I started reading this chapter. It's disgusting.
Post a Comment