Chile
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see pinochet
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CHILE STR PROTEST ECO REGS 3 23 26 DN
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J P
an 9 22
On September 4, 2022, more than 13 million Chileans—out of a voting-eligible population of approximately 15 million—voted on a proposal to introduce a new constitution in the country. As early as March, polls began to suggest that the constitution would not be able to pass. However, polls had hinted for months at a narrowing of the lead for the rejection camp, and so proponents of the new constitution remained hopeful that their campaign would in the end successfully convince the public to set aside the 1980 constitution placed upon the country by the military dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet. The date for the election, September 4, commemorated the day that Salvador Allende won the presidency in 1970. On that date, those who wanted a new constitution suggested that the ghost of Pinochet—who overthrew Allende in a violent coup in 1973—would be exorcized. As it happened, Pinochet’s constitution remains in place with more than 61 percent of voters rejecting the new constitution and only 38 percent of voters approving it.
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
The day before the election, in the municipality of Recoleta (a part of Chile’s capital city of Santiago), Mayor Daniel Jadue led a massive rally in support of passing the new constitution. Tens of thousands of people gathered in this largely working-class area with the hope, as Jadue put it, of leaving behind the “constitution of abuses.” It, however, was not to be. Even in Recoleta, where Jadue is a popular mayor, the constitution was defeated. The new constitution received 23,000 more votes than Jadue had received in the last election—a sign that the number of voters on the left had increased—but the vote to reject the constitution was larger, which meant that new voters made a greater impact on the overall result.
On September 7, Jadue told us that he was feeling “calm,” that it was a significant advance that nearly 5 million Chileans voted for the constitution and that “for the first time we have a constitutional project that is written and can be transformed into a much more concrete political program.” There is “no definitive victory and no definitive defeat,” Jadue told us. People voted not only on the constitution but also on the terrible economic situation (inflation in Chile is more than 14.1 percent) and the government’s management of it. Just as the 2020 plebiscite to draft a new constitution was a punishment for former President Sebastián Piñera, this was a punishment for the Boric government’s inability to address the problems of the people. Jadue’s “calm” stems from his confidence that if the left goes to the people with a program of action and is able to address the people’s needs, then the 5 million who voted for the constitution will find their numbers significantly increased.
Within hours of the final vote being announced, analysts from all sides tried to come to terms with what was a great defeat for the government. Francisca Fernández Droguett, a member of the Movement for Water and Territories, wrote in an article for El Ciudadano that the answer to the defeat lay in the decision by the government to make this election mandatory. “Compulsory voting put us face to face with a sector of society that we were unaware of in terms of its tendencies, not only its political tendencies but also its values.” This is precisely what happened in Recoleta. She pointed out that there was a general sentiment among the political class that those who had historically voted would—because of their general orientation toward the state—have a viewpoint that was closer to forms of progressivism. That has proven not to be the case. The campaign for the constitution did not highlight the economic issues that are important to the people who live at the rough end of social inequality. In fact, the reaction to the loss—blaming the poor (rotear, is the disparaging word) for the loss—was a reflection of the narrow-minded politics that was visible during the campaign for the new constitution.
Droguett’s point about compulsory voting is shared across the political spectrum. Until 2012, voting in Chile was compulsory, but registration for the electoral roll was voluntary; then, in 2012, with the passing of an election law reform, registration was made automatic but voting was voluntary. For such a consequential election, the government decided to make the entire voting process mandatory for all Chileans over 18 years old who were eligible to vote, with the imposition of considerable fines for those who would not vote. As it turned out, 85.81 percent of those on the electoral rolls voted, which is far more than the 55.65 percent of voters who voted in the second record turnout in Chile during the presidential election in 2021.
A comparison between the second round of voting during the presidential election of 2021 and the recent vote on the constitution is instructive. In December 2021, Chile’s President Gabriel Boric—leading the center-left Apruebo Dignidad coalition—won 4.6 million votes. Apruebo Dignidad campaigned for the constitution and won 4.8 million votes. That is, the Apruebo Dignidad vote in December 2021 and the vote for the new constitution was about the same. Boric’s opponent—José Antonio Kast—who openly praised Pinochet—won 3.65 million votes. Kast campaigned against the new constitution and was defeated by 7.88 million voters. That is, the votes against the constitution were twice more than the votes that Kast was able to garner. This figure does not register, as Jadue told us, as a shift to the right in Chile, but rather is an absolute rejection of the entire political system, including the constitutional convention.
One of the least remarked upon elements of political life in Chile—as is in other parts of Latin America—is the rapid growth of evangelical (notably Pentecostal) churches. About 20 percent of Chile’s population identifies as evangelical. In 2021, Kast went to the thanksgiving service of an evangelical congregation, the only representative invited to such an event. Forced to vote in the polls by the new mandatory system, a large section of evangelical voters rejected the proposal for a new constitution because of its liberal social agenda. Jadue told us that the evangelical community failed to recognize that the new constitution gave evangelicals “equal treatment with the Roman Catholic Church because it ensured freedom of worship.”
Those who were not in favor of the constitution began to campaign against its liberal agenda right after the constituent assembly was empaneled. While those who were in favor of the new constitution waited for it to be drafted, and they refrained from campaigning in the regions where the evangelical churches held sway and where opposition to the constitution was clear. The constitution was rejected as an expression of the growing discontent among Chileans regarding the general direction of social liberalism that was assumed by many—including the leadership of Frente Amplio—to be the inevitable progression in the country’s politics. The distance between the evangelicals and the center-left is evident not only in Chile—where the results are on display now—but also in Brazil, which faces a consequential presidential election in October.
Meanwhile, two days after the election, school children took to the streets. The text they circulated for their protest bristles with poetry: “in the face of people without memory, students make history with organization and struggle.” This entire cycle of the new constitution and the center-left Boric government began in 2011-2013, when Boric and many of his cabinet members were in college and when they began their political careers. The high school students—who faced the brutal police and now answer to Boric—want to open a new road. They were dismayed by an election that wanted to determine their future, but in which they could not participate due to their age.
Author Bio: Taroa Zúñiga Silva is a writing fellow and the Spanish media coordinator for Globetrotter. She is the co-editor with Giordana García Sojo of Venezuela, Vórtice de la Guerra del Siglo XXI (2020). She is a member of the coordinating committee of Argos: International Observatory on Migration and Human Rights and is a member of the Mecha Cooperativa, a project of the Ejército Comunicacional de Liberación.
~ neo-lib const
https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/chile
dad a nazi but accepted defeat 56%
35 yo student leader birth death neo-lib, trad of street protest,
https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/gabriel-boric-victory/
DN tag
DEC 09, 2019
Protests Against Economic Inequality Continue in Chile & Colombia
1219 dn
- Colombian Protesters Call for Second General Strike
- Chilean President Seeks to Deploy Military to Streets Amid Protests
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Finishing Off the Pinochet Dictatorship
11.28
Chile’s ongoing uprising has made clear that the country’s neoliberal order needs to be overthrown. There’s no better place to start than with the pensions Pinochet sold to private, profit-seeking management companies during his dictatorship.
Owing to its mix of macroeconomic stability, sustained growth, and diminishing levels of poverty, Chile was, until recently, considered a success story of neoliberal orthodoxy. Last month’s subway fare hike changed all that, unleashing a massive wave of civil disobedience and rebellion.
Protests erupted in major cities across the country, including an unprecedented mass rally of more than a million people in Santiago. Since then, more than forty metro stations have been destroyed, several supermarkets burned or looted, and many other buildings ravaged, including the corporate headquarters of Santiago’s main electricity company.
The government’s strong-arm response has so far resulted in seven thousand arrests, thousands of injured, and twenty-five dead. But weeks after the initial flare-up, Chileans are still on the streets. Their rage can’t easily be quashed, and their concerns will need to be addressed before Chile returns to normal.
Pinochet’s Pension Scheme
Rafael Herrera is a seventy-five-year-old retiree. According to La Tercera, he receives a monthly pension of 140,000 pesos (approximately $175) and spends 180,000 pesos (approximately $225) paying off medical debts accrued after a car accident. To cover the difference (and his monthly living costs), he depends on what sporadic work he can find — despite his back problems — and support from his son. When asked why he went out on the streets and joined the protests, he explained his reasons as follows:
I know an eighty-year-old old man in a wheelchair, and his pension is miserable. He says that if he had a gun, he would kill someone out of pure rage. I wouldn’t do that, but my anger is the same. To be living halfway. It just won’t do anymore.
Herrera’s story is the story of an entire generation of Chileans who saw their plans of a dignified old-age crash against the reality of Chile’s dismal pension provisions. In 1980, when Herrera and his generation were in their thirties, the minister of work and social welfare, José Piñera (brother of the current president, Sebastián Piñera) engineered a reform to replace the existing pay-as-you-go collective pension schemes, removing all elements of solidarity and social security. In this new scheme, each worker would contribute 10 percent of their wages, to be claimed upon retirement. Private companies, the so-called Pension Funds Administrators (AFP), would invest the money and oversee its administration (for profit).
It was a way to bring market logic into the pension system and inject a massive tranche of fresh resources into capital markets. As has recently come to light with the release of the dictatorship’s secret minutes, Pinochet’s reaction was at once encouraging and somewhat skeptical:...
5/19 coup fail, madura says chile support military
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/lithium-mining-for-green-electric-cars-is-leaving-a-stain-on-the-planet/
no lnx
Lithium mining for ‘green’ electric cars is leaving a stain on the planet
Written by Nicole Karlis / Salon September 8, 2019
In 2018, the International Energy Agency (IEA) made a prediction that had the potential to disrupt the auto industry: by 2030, there would be nearly 125 million electric vehicles owned by people around the world, they said. That was a significant increase compared to the 3.1 million electric vehicles globally owned in 2017.
“The uptake of electric vehicles is still largely driven by the policy environment,” the IEA said in the report. “The 10 leading countries in electric vehicle adoption all have a range of policies in place to promote the uptake of electric cars.”
Cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all carbon emissions in the United States, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Fossil-fuel vehicles emit an average of 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other hazardous gases for every gallon of gas consumed. On the surface, emission-free electric cars might seem a significant improvement.
Yet other regions of the world will suffer as humanity transitions to electric cars. Specifically, mining for lithium — the essential element for batteries used in many electric cars, as well as other portable electronics — is wreaking havoc on the world’s deserts.
Lithium is found in the brine of salt flats. In order to obtain lithium, holes are drilled into the flats to pump the brine to the surface. This allows lithium carbonate to be extracted through a chemical process.
Last week, Bloomberg published a report detailing how the boom in lithium mining is irreversibly destroying the local environment of northernChile’s Atacama desert. Mining for lithium means means removing large amounts of water, which means depleting the water supply for locals. According to the report, the Tilopozo meadow in Chile used to be a shelter for shepherds traveling at night, yet has become barren due to lack of grass or water. That puts a severe strain on local farmers.“We’re fooling ourselves if we call this sustainable and green mining,” Cristina Dorador, a Chilean biologist, told Bloomberg. “The lithium fever should slow down because it’s directly damaging salt flats, the ecosystem and local communities.”
Cairn Energy Research Advisors estimates the lithium ion industry is expected to grow from 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of annual production in 2017 to 800 GWhs in 2027—not only as a result of electric cars, but also because lithium is used in batteries to power various electrical and electronic goods, including mobile phones. Much of this will be mined from the South America’s Lithium Triangle, which spans across Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, an area that is said to hold more than half the world’s supply of the metal beneath its salt flats. Another major deposit comes from Australia.
“One of the biggest environmental problems caused by our endless hunger for the latest and smartest devices is a growing mineral crisis, particularly those needed to make our batteries,” Christina Valimaki an analyst at Elsevier, told UK’s Wired.
One of the side effects of lithium mining is water pollution: the process of mining can affect local water supplies, potentially poisoning communities. Yet chemical leakage is also a major concern when it comes to lithium mining. The lithium carbonate extraction process harms the soil, and can cause air pollution. There are also concerns around how to recycle it. Eco-nonprofit Friends of the Earth notes that lithium recycling is fraught, as the metal is “toxic, highly reactive and flammable.”
“It tends to be incinerated or ends up in landfill due to very low collection rates and flawed waste legislation,” Friends of the Earth states in their lithium factsheet. “Low collection rates, the low and volatile market price of lithium, and the high cost of recycling relative to primary production have contributed to the absence of lithium recycling.” The organization recommends further social and environmental impact assessments should be made.
Yet does that mean that electric cars are equally destructive as fossil-fueled ones? Not necessarily. But the idea that electric cars, or anything with lithium batteries, is “green” might be a farce. And as demand rises, the hidden costs will become more apparent.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/28/us/politics/ap-us-trump-chile.html
praises the "miracle?"
wapo
Trump Meets With Chilean Leader at the White House
By The Associated Press
Sept. 28, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met Friday with President Sebastian Pinera of Chile at the White House for talks that focused on trade, security and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
Trump welcomed Pinera to the Oval Office days after he imposed financial sanctions on members of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's inner circle and suggested Maduro could be ousted in a military coup as a way to restore the country's democracy. Tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants are in Chile.
"Venezuela is a mess and it's got to be cleaned up and people have to be taken care of," Trump said in response to a question from a reporter.
It was Pinera's first visit to the White House since he returned to Chile's presidency last spring.
Chile has been watching Trump's trade fight with China, which is Chile's largest trading partner. Chile is the world's largest exporter of copper and its central bank has raised concerns about the U.S.-China trade and a decline in copper prices.
The White House said after the meeting that the two leaders discussed security issues, freedom and democracy in the Americas and "fair and reciprocal" trade between the two nations.
Their consultations took place ahead of Trump's first trip to Latin America in late November, when he's scheduled to attend the G20 summit in Argentina and also visit Colombia.
In front of the cameras, however, it was all pleasantries for two billionaires who were entrepreneurs before entering politics in their respective countries.
Trump praised Chile as "one of the most beautiful countries in the world" and raved about the South American country's coastline. Pinera said the two nations were "likeminded countries."
In a show of solidarity with his American counterpart, Pinera displayed for Trump a printout of a red-white-and-blue American flag that contained the outline of a small Chilean flag.
"This is the American flag, and there is the Chilean flag, right at the very heart of the U.S. flag," Pinera said holding the print-out, bringing a smile to Trump's face.
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Trump meets with Chilean leader at the White House - AP News
https://apnews.com/54a030f1b7fc49ecabbce9e8af348b85
1.
Chile's new president is 'concerned' about Donald Trump - The ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../chiles...trump/.../d20e2da0-2d53-11e8-8688-e053b...
Mar 22, 2018 - Chile's new president, Sebastián Piñera, a self-made billionaire serving for the second time, was elected to lift up his nation's economy, which ...
Trump Meets With Chilean Leader at the White House - The New York ...
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/28/us/politics/ap-us-trump-chile.html
Sep 28, 2018 - WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump met Friday with President Sebastian Pinera of Chile at the White House for talks that focused on trade, security and the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. ... It was Pinera's first visit to the White House since he returned to Chile's presidency ...
Trump meets with Chile's President Sebastian Pinera at White House ...
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dem in chains
ch 10 A constitution with locks and bolts -- CHILE PINOCHET
in name of liberty, most repressive; economic freedom" for small elite gp (assassinated in DC); citizen led organizing had maDE CHILE beacon to Lat Am; actually progress started by Frei; sort New deal;
Milton visit, but advice reversible; Hayek visit, distaste for unlimited democr; JB impact still felt today; checks and bal --> locks and bolt of elite; Va school guy Pinera, 7 modernizations pvt, dereg, fragment all gp power; no industry union, so had to compete; soc sec pvtize; later had same job re SS at cato inst) 157 Rx pvtize;
CTT centro de estudios pública CEP
JB visit 1980, wile " pol unreliable": fac fired; protesters exile to remote villages;
JB called "public choice" a sci, tho know lie; paygo harry byrd; new tax must have 2/3 of 5/6 legislature; union leaders can not be pol party member, can only negit wages and hours; referendum in state of emerg so all pol parties banned, only yes no? Frei ~m rally pl arrested and tortured; one rally ok's 10k ppl in 1st in 7 yrs, 50k outside; 160 reporter fired b/c refused to read prop bout rally; new Const virtually unamendable; Mt Pel celebrate at Hoover palo alto; net mtg in chile were Allende's unmarked grave was; conserv paper condemned J helms for ignoring chile hu rights viol.
after 9/11 attacks US looked at money laundering, found Pinochet was. 2 yrs later JB sez no regrets; chile econ drop 14% "talespin; govt took 4 banks and 4 firm to keep econ from collapse 164; hardest hit ppl w/ pvt sco sec accts; poverty 2x 1970 to 87, 45% of pop.
elect system same, so 1/3 rw can rul; cato heritage still extol econ miracle; after saddam gone, jonah Goldberg sez need a pinochet; worst inequality of any OECD; college req 40% income, highest; 30 bill Penta gp w/ Soc sec $ tax dodger, bribes, donor to RW pols; 167
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how democ die chile better // to US than germany;
https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-april-11-2018/
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Chile Producing So Much Solar Energy It’s Giving Electricity Away for Free
http://www.alternet.org/environment/chile-producing-so-much-solar-energy-its-giving-electricity-away-free
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Chile, 1973
September 11 has permanently seared itself into the memory of Americans. The date has also been indelibly imprinted in the public consciousness of Chileans, because it was on this same day in 1973 that the U.S. backed a coup that violently overthrew Chile’s democracy.
In 1970, Marxist leader Salvador Allende was democratically elected president of Chile. Immediately after he was elected, the U.S. government poured resources into right-wing opposition groups and gave millions of dollars to Chile’s conservative media outlets.
The CIA deputy director of plans wrote in a 1970 memo, “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup… It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [U.S. government] and American hand be well hidden.” President Nixon subsequently ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream” in Chile, to “prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him.”
Allende’s democratic government was violently overthrown on September 11, 1973. He died in the coup, just after making an emotional speech, in which he declared he would give his life to defend Chilean democracy and sovereignty.
Far-right dictator Augusto Pinochet, who combined fascistic police state repression with hyper-capitalist free-market economic policies, was put into power. Under Pinochet’s far-right dictatorship, tens of thousands of Chilean leftists, labor organizers, and journalists were killed, disappeared, and tortured. Hundreds of thousands more people were forced into exile.
One of the most prevailing myths of the Cold War is that socialism was an unpopular system imposed on populations with brute force. Chile serves as a prime historical example of how the exact opposite was true. The masses of impoverished and oppressed people elected many socialist governments, yet these governments were often violently overthrown by the U.S. and other Western allies.
The overthrow of Allende was a turning point for many socialists in the Global South. Before he was overthrown, some leftists thought popular Marxist movements could gain state power through democratic elections, as was the case in Chile. Yet when they saw how the U.S. violently toppled Allende’s elected government, they became suspicious of the prospects of electoral politics and turned to guerrilla warfare and other tactics.
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stafford beer history, copper still nationalized
rmn kissinger disliked, economic sabotage (no US spare parts, buy up sugar, dump in river);
used telex network to route 200 loyal truckers to gov't)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_nationalization_of_copper
morgan guggenheim kaiser al peabody coal axis of evil
http://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/lehman/company.html?company=kennecott_copper_corporation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNWotZppGPk
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine
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18. In a study of 34 developed countries, the United States had the second highest level of income inequality, after Chile.
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see neo-con economic miracle?
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http://www.alternet.org/world/oh-no-pinochets-grandson-start-new-right-wing-political-party-chile
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BW bk:
school of Am's
bw hired chile commandos (pinochet sent students to chicago)
us sabotaged economy, allende land reform, literacy, cuba
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http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/07/02/chile-officials-visit-houston-to-urge-renewable-investment/