by Ivan Agüin
translated by Ana
source: http://sakerlatam.es/uncategorized/chile-la-pura-y-cruda-verdad/
Many are surprised with what happened in Chile, how is it possible that this happens in the perfect society of Latin America ?, The Switzerland of America ?, the cradle of Latin American liberalism ?, the capital of Latin American development ?, the closest idea of Eden accessible to the Venezuelan emigrant ?, the surprise has been so great that the mysticism of this example of neoliberal perfection has fallen apart, a free fall from the mythological Olympus to the harsh reality, the reality of Chile being nothing more that a Chimera, an advertising product for ideological marketing to a false ideology, a mirage of corporate mass media that has baptized it as an “economic miracle”, creating in the mediated opinion the false expectation of living or emigrating to an oasis in the in the middle of a desert of delayed populistic third-world excrement. Chile was for many, the closest thing to living the American dream.
Chile lives after a fiction, a screen full of reflectors and neon lights, a fantasy of an idyllic world of American consumption, where social degradation is hidden, where injustices, unemployment or underemployment or outsourcing, or rather, precarious employment is the norm, where the gap between the elite and the dispossessed classes is embarrassing, being in reality the most unequal country in the entire hemisphere, where all the injustices that may exist accumulate together, where their common citizens in order to live and enjoy the most elementary services, have to borrow and and end immerse in huge debts. In short, Chile is the realm of pyrotechnic happiness, where in turn a veiled feeling of hopelessness reigns, which in these days simply has come out naked into the light as a sign the relief for the long accumulated rage and impotence.
In Chile, by fire and blood, a theoretical system was imposed, ideological in quotation marks, the application of the most extreme radical “Liberalism” was implemented. That humane Chile, which was able to give birth to civilizing lights of the quality of Neruda, became a kind of rats laboratory, where some technocrats practiced a social experiment based on a logic dictating human beings to cease being human, and became a bit, a fact, an irrational consumer, a number, where only the individual interest of a few was pursued , in a desire for irrational insatiable accumulation through the extreme merciless exploitation of an entire population, at whatever cost necessary, like to slaughter, exterminate and make human lives disappear systematically, all in order to achieve numerical goals in a macro-economic format. This means that the Chilean letters as that of the sublime songs of Violeta Parra, or the perfection of the use of the castellian language by Andrés Bello, they were all turned into numbers to be used to to fill in excel tables, to the extreme in which as of today in the whole world of traditional Spanish speech no one can understand them when they try to communicate.
People are surprised that a crazy, irrational and illogical system explodes in front of their own eyes, when the foolish thing was rather that it did not explode, how can someone in their right mind believe that a system that underlies a world of limited resources and behaves as if nothing were ever to be exhausted will not explode?, how would a system or model based on inequality not explode?, people feel, have feelings, love, suffer, dream, come to this world to live, not to consume, much less suffer for it, a healthy-minded being enjoys the joy of others in their environment, a psychotic one is who enjoys the pain and suffering of others, inequality only generates anger, misery and hopelessness , and only a sadist can be happy at the expense of misfortune and disenchantment of others, nobody in their right mind can like being abused, cheated, exploited, all this is unnatural, being the natural thing that people who are under such situation to rebel, to violently explode against such a condition, no one will like the injustice of being charged for everything, of being taken to the blood for enjoying a service, of being squeezed to the last penny you generate for Goodwill of your work, and in turn, with sadistic and stubborn alevosia, in front of your eyes, exempt taxes from the richest, that is what happens in Chile, and that is why what has now happened, is not because of the 30 pesos fare rise to use the underground, is for a cluster of things, and in fact the price of the subway ticket was simply the drop of water that exceeded the patience of Chilean society, not more; to believe it is all about the subway is simply a way to banalize and try to ridicule the discontent of an entire people.
The neoliberal model does not work, and it will never work wherever it be implanted, it will always generate social discontent, for the simple fact of being antihuman, it is an irrational, illogical system, that works in reverse, a model that concentrates wealth and distributes the poverty cannot work, a system that releases the burdens and responsibilities from those who have the most, and puts all the burdens on the backs of those who have less, will never be able to work, unless people are forced into this, by using a rifle on the temples, no other way. Neoliberalism is a sick, sadistic, unethical system, it stands against nature, it is a failed model, which in a democracy could never thrive, this is only possible in a world of slaves, if a government applies terror to its citizens, that’s it.
The leadership of this sick model wants to cover the reality as when trying to cover the sun with a finger, blames the responsibility of its debacle to external factors, to a foreign government that can barely stand up by itself, and wants to disclaim the responsibility of their own mistakes , arguing childishly aboiut a conspiracy of a highly secret character that seeks to establish “socialism” on earth. This means to try to convince an already politically grown up society to believe a ghost story in plain 21st century, fighting with imaginary ghosts, or simply going crazy they declare war on the ether, when in reality they are declaring war on their own people, a people who they fear to look directly in the eyes, and definitively realizing with it, that no people in this world will accept the imposition of the neoliberal model in a docile way.
Now, let’s also not oversize what happened in Chile. Chile rises, the people rebel, but their rebellion is in the making, it has been a simple step, a call for attention to the world, but as such it does not have the strength yet to achieve a structural immediate future change. Its over-dimension is media created, precisely induced by the government itself, which is applying a strategy to anticipate future events, remember that the implementation of neoliberalism in Chile was possible through Shock therapy, and what the government is doing today is to continue applying the same continuous therapy on this people. Would you believe that a minor group of common criminals, unarmed, or rudimentary armed that loot, require a state of exception to be controlled and repressed ??? Do you know what does this means at all? Legally, it means to close the rule of law, to cut off the basic fundamental rights of any free society in a temporary manner, being it an exceptional way, a state supposedly in extreme concussion. Now, some looting, some pans, and a mobilization that can not be called massive, does it justify it? curfew being required ???, or the use of military men with war rifles and tanks ?????, is it just not true …… it is more than clear, that the pantomime Government of the democracy that Chile has, is not worried at all about the looting, nor the common crime, that the use of civil security agencies would have been more than enough to control. But such as what this government did goes further than that, and has another more perverse purpose, which it is to apply State Terrorism. They want to scare, psychologically repress an entire population. Use it against those who plunder, against those who legitimately protest, even those who abstain, ii is aimed against Chilean society in general. This is the War that Piñera poses, jus to show everyone as a general threat, and that the Pinochet dictatorship is alive and behind the shadows, and that if they rebel, they will be massacred as yesterday. The Chilean government is applying psychoterror to its people, as a way of social control, it is that simple; the sociologists and social psychologists who work for Piñera apply the following thesis, “only when a society lives terrified and forced to think merely of its survival, can it approve measures that are clearly harmful to it,” the Pinochet dictatorship as in the past and in full force until today, needs terror, because nobody accepts on their knees a model that privileges the elites over the great majority.
Chile was the laboratory of what Naomi Klein called the doctrine of shock and it was tested over forty years ago, it was a psychosocial operation involving a successive series of clashes (coups, terror, collective massacres, ideological extermination, economic measures and military interventions , all mixed at the same time), in order to control the population, doing what we could call a kind of social lobotomy, erasing people’s minds to recreate them from scratch, through a neo-eunuch human being the which submissively could accept the implantation of a system against nature, neoliberalism. What happens but is that human creation is the work of God, and is above any human social experiment, and sooner or later, the Chilean sapiens would return from there, and now that they themselves point at each other, that the Chilean people have awakened, the Chilean Sapiens, the southern man or woman of flesh and blood has awakened, has regenerated, and returned for their privileges.
How much passivity can support the social body of a country like Chile where everything has been privatized?, or Colombia, where in less than three years more than 600 people were killed? Or from a society like Argentina, whose childish and innocent political decision to vote on the right has condemned them again to travel the painful path of indebtedness that they have already suffered three times? they have been inoculated, they may let you down, but nevertheless, the vocation of intrinsic justice of the human being will always seek its course.
I know that my detractors will try to disqualify me and banalize my opinion, bringing up, the precarious situation that Venezuela suffers today, trying to endorse incoherence to my words, when making a comparison of this with Chile, but there are huge differences around the nature of social protests registered in both nations. In Venezuela, the street riots recorded in 2014 and 2017 were financed, promoted and advised directly by Washington, this is not a fantasy of foreign intervention as Chile suggests today, it is something real and incontrovertible, the facts and evidence are irrefutable, I am aware of the legitimacy that every State has in conserving itself through the application of repression, but in Venezuela the repression always remained within the internationally accepted parameters, the protest was not of social nature as in Chile, but political, clearly seditious, collaborative directly to foreign interests, it was not the State as it does in Chile who intended to impose terror, but, it was the protesters who wanted to impose it, (remember the burning of people alive, the guayas, the snipers, and the use of explosives), both manifestations have diametrically opposed objectives, in Venezuela it was aimed at installing a neoliberal government, the type of Chile’s, seeking beligerantly to reimplant the IMF in Venezuela, while on the contrary, in Chile they struggle to free themselves from it. Chileans do not necessarily seek to make a copy a of the Venezuelan government, but they claim to enjoy elementary rights and services that every normal and free society should enjoy. In Venezuela the middle class protests, all those who consider themselves to be part of the elite whether realistically or not, in Chile are the popular classes who protest and part of the middle class rationally conscious of its reality, the Chilean protest is clearly vindictive, the Venezuelan is clearly seditious, in Venezuela the armed forces are clearly people, and they do not represent in themselves an occupation force that is at war against its own people, instead the Chilean armed forces are clearly elitesque, their high commanders belong exclusively to the wealthy class, and represent for their people an army of occupation that is at war, and that has his own people as an enemy.
This is the truth of Chile, and every honest, ethical person, with principles, dignity and honor, knows very well that I am not lying, if they want to have a reliable proof of this reality, of the validity of Pinochet as an evil spirit, as a living dead, just watch the following video …
The neo-liberal houses of cards are starting to collapse – Ecuador, Chile, perhaps Brazil soon.
The social violence of south american societies gives birth to another violent repression. Will we see a revolution, or the birth of a neo-fascist regime?
Banksters, be very afraid.
Neo-neo-fascism, for sure. Violence, in the end, is the neo-liberals’ preferred response, always.
the reality of Chile being nothing more that a Chimera…
Not even that because it hasn’t fooled anyone living in the country itself. More of a Potemkin village, a facade, a make-believe movie set. Every Chilean has known for decades what is the reality behind the “Chilean economic miracle”:
Having to live with a cost of living of a developed society with Third World salaires and revenues.
I read the article hoping to find some information about what was happening. I was disappointed. I found only a rant by someone with a political ax to grind.
Seven years ago I traveled around Chile extensively for two months. I traveled from the Visviri Tripartite to the Straight of Magellan. I visited extremely rich people and extremely poor people. I stayed in various cities, and camped among shepherds in the mountains. I talked with people and watched their behavior. Never did I feel uncomfortable. I was always welcomed. People were friendly and often unusually helpful and kind; at worst neutral. Furthermore, from what I observed, they behaved that way toward each other, too. Considering this last point, it is an exceptional society. But what do I know? Only what I saw.
I didn’t discuss politics. I didn’t need or want to, and don’t want to now. Politics everywhere seems to be bickering and squabbling, the object of which is to divide people in order to gain some pathetic advantage. What I saw there seemed to be the opposite: genuine collaboration. I sat together with extremely wealthy and extremely poor people, in remote shacks and drank mate with them while they discussed their concerns. It sure seemed genuine.
Were there imperfections? Of course. But the feeling I got was that they were not much interested in playing zero-sum games. Maybe I saw a different country than this author describes. Could be.
The neo-liberal paradise of Chile, so beloved of Westerners since Friedman and his Chicago Boys brutalised the country at the points of Pinochet’s bayonets, has devolved into neo-feudalism, as all neo-liberal Hell-holes must, and will. As the only answer that the neo-liberal misanthropes and class warriors have to the inevitable putrescence of the atomised and unequal sewer that they deliberately create, is yet more neo-liberal austerity, social sadism and class hatred, the process must lead to revolt. It’s only a matter of time, because the neo-liberals cannot help themselves-their greed, egotism and hatred of others are insuperable.
Neoliberalism is Trotskyism for the rich, a bonanza of wealth for the parasites and exploiters of our World.
Neoliberalism is one of the greatest con jobs ever foisted on humanity by the 0.001% and their sycophantic stooges, especially the presstitute vermin in the alleged mainstream media.
I met several Chilean people years ago in Australia who had to flee Chile during the fascist Pinochet regime. One man had been tortured so badly, he was crippled for life.
If anyone is interested, there’s an excellent site called Neoliberalism Softpanorama that fully exposes this cancerous ideology for what it really is, with dozens of subsections and a huge amount of analysis with hundreds of linked articles.
Thanks Ivan and Ana for this update on what is happening. According to the slime stenographers, it was all about the increase in subway fares. How predictable.
They tried to ignore it for days, unlike the wall-to-wall coverage of the terrorist compradore vermin in Hong Kong. And today they seem to have forgotten the eleven dead, so far, in Chile. If eleven of the terrorists had died in Hong Kong, the presstitutes, particularly in the ABC sewer, would be foaming with outrage.
I wish there were captions with that video. I would like to have known what was said. Everywhere the west and western ideology meddle, this is the end result. But we will face a wall of lying propaganda that these troubles are caused by ‘evil, terrible socialism’. But America is the protector of freedom and justice if you can believe that. John Whitehead has written many revealing articles overflowing with real-world examples of what America really is: a police state. A surveillance state. Or as George Carlin said regarding ‘the American dream’, “You have to be asleep to believe it”.
I do not speak English very well, things about the Spanish education of the 90s, but with the help of the google translator, which translates the letters into Spanish, here you have your translation companion, not knowing Spanish, and having no subtitles, here You have the closest thing, I’m not very good at writing. And then there is the problem of the Chilean accent, I don’t know if he is speaking or affirming it, that’s why my apologies, I will try to be the most precise.
“With full clarity, that the health conditions of Senator Pinochet are very delicate and we all know them. Senator Pinochet and his family are living through difficult times. Man now deserves all our solidarity.
It constitutes a grievance and an attack on the deepest of our sovereignty and our independence and our dignity and we want to tell Judge Garzón, understand it very well.
Chile is and will always be a free country and a free and sovereign country.
Due to a problem of principles, we cannot allow a Spanish judge, tomorrow a judge of Mozámbique or any other part of the world to throw a jurisdiction that does not belong to him and intends to meddle in our affairs and to judge people for events that occurred in our country, and that they have the high position of having been the former president of the Republic.
We also know that the non-respect of the English government, of diplomatic immunity.
What by international law belonged to a senator of the Republic, in special mission of our government. It also constitutes a serious attack on what is the sovereignty and dignity of Chile! Let’s say clearly and loudly so that it is heard in Chile and throughout the world, we are a country that respects international law, but we are also a country, which has always had and will demonstrate once again, the will and the strength and the courage to defend our dignity and to defend our sovereignty, as strong principal and powerful, the people who produce, are trained, so haughty and gallant and bellicose, which has not been for king ever ruled, nor to foreign domain ever submitted.
We want Mr. Garzón to know, what more than 188 years ago, our country, obtained its independence, with courage and much courage and none of us is willing to be a colony of any country in the world!
Osvaldo Romo Mena (c. 1938 – 4 July 2007) was an agent of the Chilean Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) from 1973 to 1990, during the rule of Augusto Pinochet. Involved in the forced disappearance of more than a hundred people, including Christians for Socialism and MIR members Diana Aron Svigilsky, Manuel Cortez Joo and Ofelio Lazo. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but several of these sentences were suspended by the Chilean Supreme Court.[1]
Life
Osvaldo Romo made himself known in working classes’ neighborhoods before Pinochet’s coup in 1973 as a leftist activist, member of the Popular Socialist Union (USOPO) and MIR sympathizer.[1] Following the coup, he reappeared in these neighborhoods with a military uniform, arresting his friends and contacts. Left-wing circles still debate to know if he suddenly changed political orientation or if he always was a mole for the security services.[1]
Known as Guatón Romo (“Fatso Romo”) or Comandante Raúl, he was one of DINA’s most important torturers, operating among others centers in Villa Grimaldi.[1] On April 11, 1995, in an interview televised by Univisión, he commented in great detail, and evidently without remorse, on the techniques that had been used. These included the application of electricity to women’s nipples and genitals, the use of dogs, and the insertion of rats into women’s vaginas.[1]
—Would you do it again? Would you do it the same way?
—Sure, I’d do the same and more. I wouldn’t leave anybody alive (…) That was one of DINA’s mistakes. I was always arguing with my general: don’t leave that person alive, don’t let that person go free. There are consequences.
—As for throwing the corpses of the prisoners into the sea…
—I think it could have happened. (…) Throwing them into the crater of a volcano would be better… (…) Who’d go looking for them in a volcano? Nobody.
—On the day you die… what would your epitaph say? “Here lies the hangman, the torturer, the murderer…”
—Logical, logical. I accept that. But for me it was a positive thing. (…) I am at peace with my conscience and my beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osvaldo_Romo
The reason i don’t like your article is because your unbalanced with it. You buy too much into this left and right war which is not as simple as saying left or right. I think a more balanced approach would have helped your article. peace
The tragedy of Latin America is either way they are utterly and completely f***d. Choose between getting robbed blind piecemeal and longer term by neoliberal parasitism, monopolies and usury, and the cardiac shock of total meltdown / devolution in a socialist paradise meaning anarchy and mob rule. Living in Mexico i see firsthand the level of ineptitude of the new socialist government and their weakness / complicity with organized crime and sheer economic illiteracy. The country has come to a standstill and crime exploded and when asked about the recent surrender of the country´s military to a group of narcos, the president claims “humanity” won by releasing criminals and then talks 10 minutes about a baseball game, its getting surreally stupid. Its so bad they make even the former complete joke of a muppet government look attractive in comparison. Hard to believe and painful to admit, but true.
Your depiction of the fate of countries under socialism is pure Rightwing, Imperial, agit-prop. The economic woes attending socialist states derive from unceasing US and Western economic warfare, and from socialist Governments’ surrender to that economic pressure. In places like Cuba, socialism has succeeded greatly, despite the vicious sanctions regime and sixty years of terrorism and sabotage, including the introduction of African Swine Fever by the CIA.
with ur simplistic categorisation u consistently miss out on the finer distinctions and just keep banging ur ideology driven head against the unimpressed wall of reality. qed. when have u last visited Cuba or any of these socialist utopias? and for once, assume responsibility for the failings of socialist regimes instead of the lame excuse of sanctions. no one forced Venezuela to squander its ressources and neglect infrastructure while oil prices were in the stratosphere. No one forced Cuba to beg for handouts from the Soviet Union instead of rebuilding its country. With this kind of socialism as the supposed only alternative the enemy even in its current decrepit state has an easy game and nothing to fear. and people like u in their stubborn onedimensionality are responsible for prolonging the agony.
metternich,
You ask Mulga: “when have u last visited Cuba”? I redirect this same question to you, although it is not necessary to have been there to understand what happens in Cuba.
After their revolution expelling dirty capitalist-imperialists from their land, the communist government did for Cuba what the Cuban people needed – which those brainwashed by western propaganda do not know and, if they did, would not be able to appreciate (unfortunately, for them)…
Cuba has a very healthy, happy society that would NOT bend to the western capitalist consumerism – of everything, including, for example, guns and other weapons in the US. Cuban people are not debt ridden. They have a beautiful culture, great music, and an equality unknown in the poor west (very poor indeed in terms of culture, music, equality…). Cuban people eat very well and are healthy. Havana, for example, can feed itself with organic vegetables – and EXPORT to the rest of the country – only with urban and peri-urban agriculture! This is such an accomplishment that, when I talked about it in a conference in Tianjin, 7 years ago, some officials came to talk to me later, despite the fact that China has a good experience with urban agriculture. The Cubans have also the best health system in the planet that focus on preventing diseases instead of just ‘treating’ them. This can only be possible under socialism where diseases are prevented with clean water, sanitation, healthy food for all, proper education, adequate housing, and dignity coupled with job security resulting in mental health. Ask any Cuban if they would change all of this for an insecure and miserable life as a servant for a rich crook in the west! And they have an excellent educational system in Cuba, as well.
Cuba does not have the disgusting inequalities between the rich and the poor we find in the west. It has not been easy for Cuba, since 1962, to survive under the draconian embargo imposed by the US. Cuba has had adequate support of their allies when the international situation allows, without the pressure to pay back with the exorbitant interest that poor capitalist ‘colonies’ in the rest of Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia have to pay to western banks… The Cold War and the mentality that still prevails among reactionary groups was/is a western reaction against the great success of socialism. After 70 years of their communist revolution to get where they are now, socialist China is a fantastic country, impressive by any account! Despite all the sabotage from the collapsing west, socialism has proved to be superior than capitalism-imperialism.
Excelent Analysis and Brief !! From an Exiled Chilean that saw it all up to 1974, from an Allende Residence and from inside the Chilean Navy.
For those that find this writer ‘not balanced’, what you are reading is the expression of a revolution that was brought to a serious halt in the early ’70’s already, and a neoliberal take-over presented as an advertisement for the West. These emotions, this strong yearning to be free and not under neo-liberal yoke is clear in this writer’s piece and very obviously still alive within the population. That is what is being conveyed here – the methods of social control harkens back to that revolution. .
“The Chilean government is applying psychoterror to its people, as a way of social control, it is that simple; the sociologists and social psychologists who work for Piñera apply the following thesis, “only when a society lives terrified and forced to think merely of its survival, can it approve measures that are clearly harmful to it,” the Pinochet dictatorship as in the past and in full force until today, needs terror, because nobody accepts on their knees a model that privileges the elites over the great majority.”
Some time ago I wrote a piece about a Chilean musician, Victor Jarra, that was killed in that revolution.
I called that piece An artist, not silenced. But now, I can add a sentence to it. A revolution, not silenced, still alive in the hearts and minds.
The writer’s emotions do not only fit, that is exactly what is being expressed in Chile now.
I’ll just quote my piece here – its short and was written August 17, 2018:
“It was with a bitter-sweet emotion that I saw the news that nine ex-soldiers in Chile, the killers of Victor Jara, at last were sentenced.
Victor Jara, with his gentle folk guitar music with those clear Latin rhythms, still remains one of the most popular musician artists in the Latin Americas to today. It was in 1973 that he was rounded up with thousands of other political prisoners in the Santiago stadium in Chile, interrogated, tortured, killed and thrown out into the street to complete the disrespect, during a coup that overthrew the Popular Unity President of Chile, Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. It is generally accepted that the Coup in Chile was a CIA-backed coup and General Augusto Pinochet was installed as the subsequent brutal dictator.
Now, almost 45 years later, a Chilean judge has convicted nine former soldiers for the murder of Victor Jara.
I’ve known Victor Jara’s gentle folk music for many years and frequently find myself to this day humming Victor Jara songs.
Years ago, holidaying at a beach in a LatAm country, we were accompanied by a family member, at that time an octogenarian, and we all knew that it would be the last family vacation – a time to build beautiful memories while starting the process of parting from our family member. He of course was a hard conservative but we loved him anyway. Having a meal at a beach restaurant one balmy tropical evening, a group of strolling musicians came closer, playing some beats popular in the dance halls and clubs, but too loud, too fast and too alive for our older family member. I asked the musicians for something gentle, for a serenade. They smiled (evil grins were more like it) and played and sang a beautiful and haunting rendition of Manifiesto. The restaurant fell into silence with the non-Spanish vacationers not knowing why silence descended, but each one of the Latin American visitors and staff, became very quiet and paid respects. At the end of the song, a few quiet “Viva Victor!” and “Siempre” (always) was heard.
I never explained to our older conservative family member which exact song he was serenaded with, on that special and last evening on the beach. I did not let him know that he was serenaded with the most meaningful protest song of the Latin American world, a song that sparked a movement while expressing the deepest of resistance against the human brutalities of the ages – without saying it, and one can sing it to a baby as a lullaby. The story goes about that CIA coup in Chile that the coup would be complete and immediately successful once Victor Jara is killed. That is why they threw him out dead in the street – as a symbol of coup success. But 45 years later, there is not one person in Latin America that does not know Victor Jara – and there is not one musician in Latin American that cannot play Victor Jara.
Yes, it is bitter-sweet. Incarceration of others is not a thing of joy, but to see Victor Jara avenged after so many years, does carry some sense of sweetness in my inner worlds
I think of that night on a beach, when this one song charmed an old man, and brought a restaurant to a silence that spoke louder than speech in the hearts and minds of those present. This artist was not silenced.”
https://saker.community/2018/08/17/not-silenced/
A international reflection by a chilean.
What would be the main powers leaders thinking about Chile in this minute? Probably Chile is the least of their concerns, because there are so many places were they are facing each other (Syria for example). At the international level, the chilean affair is not everywhere in first page, it is just another crisis within many.
Nevertheless, soon the COP 25 and APEC summits will occur. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, the world’s most powerful presidents in this moment, that represents different blocs (USA-China,Russia), will be here, in Chile.
I wonder if they will talk about this, because there are several implications.
For nobody is secret that the USA controls Chile and their political class. With bribes, financial and political support, as the main supplier off weapons to the armed forces (together with Israel) and as architects of our experimental economic system, that then they tried to apply (partially). Nevertheless, USA is in plain crisis at a world level and is loosing power rapidly. USA is the second commercial partner of Chile
China, by the other hand, is living the contrary. Is in the rise, its power grows day after day. Every time it has more influence among other countries and it is the first commercial partner of Chile. What it means, that it has de facto control over Chile.
Russia, is an actor with its strength is not the economic (6th economy in PPP) but its power resides in resources, industrial base and specially the military. Russia is China’s nuclear umbrella against USA. Russia has been taking the role of mediator in many conflicts and i would not be surprised that if this conflict escalates, Putin would agree to mediate.
Before this things complicate. By a side the USA does not want its southern cone son to be destabilize, but it does not want to lose this government either because it is their more direct way to control the country. What it means that the USA won’t like to see the people win.
China by the contrary, despite it does not want to see Chile destabilized , it would look positively that the USA lose power in the country, where they could fill the space. We would change western investment for asian investment. The issue is that the cultural closeness of the USA with the chilean elite facilitate its control , versus the remoteness that these have with China.
I don’t doubt that this government will fall and the people will triumph, but i am uneasy about the geopolitical situation in which our country will be. The military is controlled by the USA, so, there will be extreme resistance by them (as of now the USS Wasp is the Valparaíso harbor). The business elites are capable to selling their grandmother, but they prefer the USA to China, because at the end, even if it does not look like, they are communists.
If the government continues this way, it will be getting paranoid and will start blaming Maduro and the “international left”, that will derive in blaming Russia as the mastermind (following the USA script). We all know that messing with Russia is messing with China.
We need to have a lot of caution from the foreign media, if they are receiving our info and looks imparcial (because it is not their countries), remember who are their friends and with who are their media groups connected with.
This is why i call to continue the demands, to prepare for a complicated future and that Chile must remain united to finally build a more just country.
PS: i add a very didactic video by the Russian tv (in spanish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM-SAZTroWU&t=1s
The Chilean elites did not learn from the past and putting the tanks on the streets, like in the 70, is a terrible mistake. It was much easier 40 years ago but you cannot do this in 2019, the whole world is watching the whole charade on the internet and real time. This morning I was watching a video from a guy called Fernando Villegas (I think he is a journalist) who was complaining that the goverment was not using even more brutality. Same with Kast. These people never learn and this time is not going to work like in the 70, it could end very bad.
I saw the video from the Russian TV this morning as well, it is excellent. I loved that guy saying “Por qué está preguntando huevadas ???” JAJAJA.
I have visited Chile several years ago for two weeks at the invitation of one of the rich people living there. My impression was mixed. Chile was looking “rich” to the outsiders visiting Santiago but I also saw huge tin can dwellings on the outskirts of big cities. But most striking thing for me was the way they treated not so well to do citizens. I’ve had an impression that they were seen as human trash more or less. This is the way I would most likely describe as to how XIX century nobility in Europe looked upon serfs.
Pity, other vise Chile is beautiful country and I wish I could stay longer to see it all from Patagonia to all the way up to the North. Oh btw, Chilean wine is one of the best in the world not only because of soil and climate but also because they practically use no agro-chemicals at all.
Removed. Please stay on topic.