Pinochet dies

[BPSCG]

Wretched peasant killing thousand on the way to power - now that is some movie excitement. Its that 'underdog taking on the establishment' appeal that makes movies.

I eagerly await the admiring Hollywood take on Hitler's rise to power.

 

[BPSCG]

While we're on the subject...

Cuban President Fidel Castro is very ill and close to death, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte said yesterday.

"Everything we see indicates it will not be much longer . . . months, not years," Negroponte told a meeting of Washington Post editors and reporters.

 

[Gurdur]

......Pinochet, who left a thriving economy in his wake

And Mussolini made the trains run on time.

And Stalin built up the USSR's heavy industry hugely.

And Hitler built the autobahns and also oversaw a big economic upturn in Germany.

And I suppose Pol Pot did a lot for Cambodian agriculture.

Meh. Your values system stinks.

And to relativise Pinochet against alleged intents of Allende's just stinks to high heaven. Allende was not responsible for murders; Pinochet was anti-democratic, allowed anti-Semitism to flourish in his early reign, and was a murdering little a*sehole.

And look, I don't like Castro all that much at all. But he was far better than Batista --- why the hell do you think the Cuban population so enthusiastically fought against the Bay Of Pigs invasion?

 

[BPSCG]

And Mussolini made the trains run on time.

And Stalin built up the USSR's heavy industry hugely.

And Hitler built the autobahns and also oversaw a big economic upturn in Germany.

And I suppose Pol Pot did a lot for Cambodian agriculture.

Meh. Your values system stinks.

Meh. So do your comparisons.

What did any of the dictators you name above leave behind them, except a country in literal ruins?

Did any of them allow a constitution that provided for a plebescite to remove them from office?

Did any of them step down from office after losing that plebescite?

Did any of them leave behind the most prosperous democracy on their continent?

Sorry, Pinochet, for all his sins - and they were undeniable - isn't in the same league as your guys (and I'll acknowledge that Castro isn't, either, at least not in the same league as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot).

And, FYI, Mussolini did not make the trains run on time.

And to relativise Pinochet against alleged intents of Allende's just stinks to high heaven.

Read Patricio Elicer's link. Allende intended to turn Chile into another Cuba. Do you approve of the "one man, one vote, one time" system of government?

 

[Mycroft]

I eagerly await the admiring Hollywood take on Hitler's rise to power.

That actually sounds like a really good basis for a dark comedy. Can you imagine the guy who plays "Black Adder" in that role?

 

[steverino]

That actually sounds like a really good basis for a dark comedy. Can you imagine the guy who plays "Black Adder" in that role?

Mr. Bean...Rowen Atkinson, who is Jewish.

Charlie Chaplin pulled it off.

 

[Elizabeth I]

And look, I don't like Castro all that much at all. But he was far better than Batista...

"Far better than Batista?" He has turned in to exactly the same thing Batista was. And I was just a small chile when Castro came to power, but how many people were setting off from Cuba on inner tubes while Batista was in charge?

 

[Patricio Elicer]

So the coup was not really a coup against a democratically elected government, but against a Marxist dictatorship. That the result was a right-wing dictatorship is not much of a consolation, but at least let us be clear about what the real options were: it was only a question of what kind of dictatorship Chile would be under, not whether it would be under totalitarian rule.

That's a pretty accurate assessment.

By mid 1973 the country was in a state of chaos. The economy was utterly broken with 600% inflation, it was a struggle for the vast majority of the population (the middle class) to fulfill their basic needs (long lines to get even the daily bread). Allende's government had been declared unconstitutional, constitution was no longer respected, private property was no longer respected. Paramilitary groups from Cuba and other Centroamerican countries were already established in the country giving guerrilla training, tons of arms and ammunition had been smuggled into the country in the name of the revolution, etc.

The stage was all set for an internal war. It was not a matter of whether or not there would be blood in the streets, but rather what "color" that blood would be. There would be either a preponderance of "left blood" or preponderance of "right blood", but there would be blood.

Here's a detailed and comprehensive essay on the facts of Allende's period that opened the way to Pinochet's dictatorship:

The Allende Myth

Some quotes:

In March 1972, thirteen large wooden crates that came from Cuba contained more than a ton of armaments for the Popular Unity (that were stored even in Allende’s own presidential residence), and the arm searches enforced by the military in 1973 revealed stockpiling of arms by both the government and the opposition. This was one of the main factors in the military decision to organize a coup later in the year. On May 23, 1973, eight air force generals protested to Allende his inaction against the MIR. The armed forces began thinking about intervention as far back as April 1972, when Pinochet himself acknowledged “that a peaceful solution to the political impasse was impossible.” (Sigmund, p. 226)

In July, the Christian Democratic Party issues “a statement accusing the government of attempting to set up an armed militia by distributing arms in the seized factories and the cordones industriales.” “The establishment of this de facto ‘people’s power’ with the evident participation of state authorities is incompatible with the survival of the ‘institutional power’ of law established by the constitution.” The author adds: “(visiting Chile at this time, I was astounded at the widespread acquisition of arms by both pro- and antigovernment Chileans.)” (Sigmund, p. 218)

... the extreme, revolutionary left inside (the Altamirano faction of the Socialist Party) and outside the Popular Unity (the MIR and the Christian Left), itself a minority within a minority, could not impose a rapid transition to socialism but anyhow began creating a “dual power” situation similar to the early Russian Revolution, in which the cordones industriales (industrial parks), campamentos (squatter neighborhoods) and poblaciones (slum-dwellers) of the main cities would form Soviets and become the basis of a worker-peasant army that “co-coordinated with a more protracted guerrilla campaign in the southern provinces” would eventually be capable of engaging and beating the Chilean armed forces. (Roxborough, pp. 71-73; Moss, pp. 101-103, 107)

... Allende himself had confided to Regis Debray “that his differences with apostles of violence like Guevara were only ‘tactical,’ plus his admission that he was observing legality ‘for the time being,’ and his assertion that he had agreed to the Statute of Democratic Guarantees as a ‘tactical necessity’.” (Sigmund, p. 140). And his own Socialist Party, at its Congress in January 1971, had stated that “the special conditions under which Popular Unity came to power oblige it to observe the limits of a bourgeois state for now” and had warned its members to prepare for “the decisive confrontation with the bourgeoisie and imperialism.” (Sigmund, footnote 7/12)

The Christian Democrats hardened their attitude and declared that “in Chile there exist armed groups, and the laws and the Constitution are broken. From then on, it was only a matter of time as the denunciations piled up. By 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies had openly called on the armed forces to leave the cabinet and to take action to ensure the essential bases for democratic harmony among the Chilean people.” (Roxborough, p. 120)

 

[BPSCG]

Foreign Exchange (In Focus: Che’s Anatomy)


This is from a US student who chose to go to med school in Cuba. This person seemed to think that being 20+ years behind was fine because it was free and available to everyone. I suppose "inadequate" means different things to different people. I would personally prefer to benefit from the last 20 years of technilogical advancement. Even if I have to pay for it.

Some photos of Cuba's hospitals (click on "Enter Gallery").

 

[Polaris]

I eagerly await the admiring Hollywood take on Hitler's rise to power.

It was done in 2003:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346293/