Chile Forum

PenquistaDeCorazon wrote: I did not mean I have anything to learn in terms of historical analyses.

Anytime there are too many polysyllabic words, more than two paragraphs, or an RGL above 4.0, the key theses seem to get lost.

So for my more modern students, who have probably never seen a Blue Book, we have the Powerpoint version:


- 1973 Chile coup vs Spanish Civil War
- -- Rapid coup prevented extended civil war
- -- Coup outcome minimised loss of life and infrastructure damage
- -- Reduced losses allowed quicker economic recovery than after SCW

- Economic outcomes
- -- Nationist victory kept Spain from becoming Soviet client state
- -- 1973 Chilean coup averted Soviet client state in Chile
- -- With exception of Cuba, main Soviet client states failed subsequent to 1989 implosion of USSR
- -- Post-coup Chile economy universally recognised as success; emulated elsewhere in LaAmerica


This will be on the final. Try to focus on the key elements.

PenquistaDeCorazon wrote:
But how's about we put this one to bed? It's been insightful.... But really Px told you what you wanted to hear all along (Franco a saint, Pinochet a saint, Allende evil) and I have no desire to try to convince you otherwise. It;s been fun I'm sure .

P.D. How convenient that you dodged my question in comparing Cuba to Haiti, the Dominican or Mexico.... I have been to all but Haiti. Impose a US embargo on Singapore and see how they do in international finance. Prevent US banks from having anything to do there and see what happens?

This started when I read the wiki article on Allende and to my surprise - as wiki appears to me to often have a leftist bent- it portrayed Allende and his team as hard communists who were in the process of wrecking the economy and attempting a social revolution. Allende has always been portrayed here in the press and in academia as a kind socialist who threatened no one but bad MNCs and their evil US economic hitmen. (I live in the Republik of Santa Cruz; I'm not a dope with an IV attached to FOX news. In fact, I remember the take down of Allende by the US as it was one of my awakenings as to how the world works... I've just been a little slower to catching on to how communists have operated in the past and how we still have apologists today.)

You and Px have presented both views and it sounds like the groups you represent aren't getting into fistfights at bars weekly. That's great, that's what I wanted to learn.

I have no quarrel with you on the obnoxiousness of US foreign policy and in particular the embargo on Cuba, assassination attempts, Bay of Pigs, etc. We have had a terrible impact on Central America with our drug wars, military support for banana companies, being pals with death squads and thuggish leaders keeping borders open for illegals to do chicken plucking for crooked businessmen in Omaha (and cheap gardening for crooked wealthy liberals in Santa Monica).

Borders are for sovereignty and the word of the founding fathers on avoiding foreign entanglements rings true to me. If you conflate US policy with capitalism I am perplexed; these policies are government policies. That the rich and powerful and corporations capture control of a government's foreign policy only matters when large and centralized government offers real power to dominate neighbors. I am against large government and centralization of power. I'm not in favor of a warfare state or a welfare state. They go hand in hand.

Again, what I was hoping to find in Chile are people who are suspicious of government for either of these reasons, welfare or warfare. Seems that you are happy with a welfare state - as most Canadians are - but wary of the warfare state. That's good enough for me... as long as there is the other half to check your hunger for big government and for that I hope there are an equal number of Pxs.

Listen, I may be a Yank but I was playing hockey at age 5, so I hope i can treat you to a beer when I arrive.

Thanks again for listening and responding.

no country for young men wrote:

PenquistaDeCorazon wrote:
But how's about we put this one to bed? It's been insightful.... But really Px told you what you wanted to hear all along (Franco a saint, Pinochet a saint, Allende evil) and I have no desire to try to convince you otherwise. It;s been fun I'm sure .

P.D. How convenient that you dodged my question in comparing Cuba to Haiti, the Dominican or Mexico.... I have been to all but Haiti. Impose a US embargo on Singapore and see how they do in international finance. Prevent US banks from having anything to do there and see what happens?

This started when I read the wiki article on Allende and to my surprise - as wiki appears to me to often have a leftist bent- it portrayed Allende and his team as hard communists who were in the process of wrecking the economy and attempting a social revolution. Allende has always been portrayed here in the press and in academia as a kind socialist who threatened no one but bad MNCs and their evil US economic hitmen. (I live in the Republik of Santa Cruz; I'm not a dope with an IV attached to FOX news. In fact, I remember the take down of Allende by the US as it was one of my awakenings as to how the world works... I've just been a little slower to catching on to how communists have operated in the past and how we still have apologists today.)

You and Px have presented both views and it sounds like the groups you represent aren't getting into fistfights at bars weekly. That's great, that's what I wanted to learn.

I have no quarrel with you on the obnoxiousness of US foreign policy and in particular the embargo on Cuba, assassination attempts, Bay of Pigs, etc. We have had a terrible impact on Central America with our drug wars, military support for banana companies, being pals with death squads and thuggish leaders keeping borders open for illegals to do chicken plucking for crooked businessmen in Omaha (and cheap gardening for crooked wealthy liberals in Santa Monica).

Borders are for sovereignty and the word of the founding fathers on avoiding foreign entanglements rings true to me. If you conflate US policy with capitalism I am perplexed; these policies are government policies. That the rich and powerful and corporations capture control of a government's foreign policy only matters when large and centralized government offers real power to dominate neighbors. I am against large government and centralization of power. I'm not in favor of a warfare state or a welfare state. They go hand in hand.

Again, what I was hoping to find in Chile are people who are suspicious of government for either of these reasons, welfare or warfare. Seems that you are happy with a welfare state - as most Canadians are - but wary of the warfare state. That's good enough for me... as long as there is the other half to check your hunger for big government and for that I hope there are an equal number of Pxs.

Listen, I may be a Yank but I was playing hockey at age 5, so I hope i can treat you to a beer when I arrive.

Thanks again for listening and responding.

When I travel back to Chile we get into these debates over beers. No noses get bloodied. If you really want to see a war go to a soccer game between Colo Colo and Universidad de CHile. That is where the best bloody noses happen. Most of my cousins are fans of Catolica. There's just no reasoning with people of that ilk.

Good comments, all, Px and Country. And good to read that at least one foreigner, Px, reasoned his temperate and reserved support of the Chilean path of '73 along the same lines as my well-educated, temperate Chilean cousins. I think that Country will find the place congenial.