I do not just believe in Systems of Thoughts but also in Systems of Mood. For example if one installs oneself in a mood of indifference, cruelty, or inequity, that mood, by affecting all of one’s neurochemistry, will pervade all of one’s mental system. This holds not just within individuals, but for entire superorganisms: societies. Logic is punctual, moods are global, they tweak all logics.
Charles Blow contemplates the“Occupy Wall Street Legacy“, and strikes an optimist note:“The rich have recovered, but the rest still struggle. This cannot long stand.” Yes, the people should stop struggling, and just humbly submit to their Lords before the latter get real angry, as they did on 9/11/1973. That’s when the legal government of Chile was assassinated, and replaced by a made in USA neoconservative butchery.
First the Chief of Staff of the army, a constitutionalist, had to be killed. General René Schneider was Army Commander-in-chief at the time of the 1970 Chilean presidential election, in which Salvador Allende won a plurality on September 4, 1970, on his fourth try for the presidency. A congressional vote was required to confirm the winner.
Allende was a Medical Doctor from the upper Chilean society. Having seen misery in hospitals, he founded the Unidad Popular (“Popular Unity”) coalition. He was minister of health in 1938, a deputy and a senator. Contrarily to what is often claimed, Allende was a socialist, not a Marxist. In personal conversations with his closest friends, he never evoked Marx. Allende lived in a mansion.
Hollande, the French president who waged war in Mali and wants to “punir le dictateur Assad“, is also a socialist. Yet he is not from the upper society and does not own a mansion.
The basic problem with Allende was that he was under the misconception that Chili was owned by Chileans.
The CIA spent 2.7 million dollars to defeat Allende in 1964, plus much more millions from Royal houses in Europe, the Vatican, Christian Democratic parties, the Catholic church of the USA, all sorts of frantic plutocrats. The money was used for what the ambassador of the USA, Edward Korry called “an enormous propaganda campaign” (American propaganda campaigns, Korry added, that he witnessed in many countries; even in Europe).
The same strategy was used in Italy in 1948, or Chili in 1970 (this time with a CIA seed of ten millions): create an anti-Socialist terror (source: Nixon’s ambassador to Chile, again).
Incidentally this shows that the concept of plutocracy is all-embracing, and that the Royal Houses are part of it. They should all be unceremoniously replaced by the Republic, and the main reason invoked ought to be, precisely, this sort of criminal conspiracies against humanity that they have been involved in. (Catalonia independencia is a good place to start!)
This is not just dead history: all those who repeat that Allende was a Marxist are still part, consciously or not, of that propaganda, that conspiracy, serving the masters.
Actually Nixon did not call Allende a Marxist. He knew better. Nixon called Allende a “bastard”, a “SOB”. Richard Nixon, the famous criminal, decided he got a vote too. Nixon ordered that Allende would not go from quasi elected president to president. Nixon ordered the CIA to “smash that bastard” (revealed his ambassador, Edward Korry). Three Chilean generals met with the US ambassador. They informed him that the chief of the Chilean army would strictly follow the Chilean Constitution, and refuse to make a coup.
So Kissinger and Richard Helms (CIA chief) sent weapons and ammunitions to Chiliand personnel to Chili to assassinate general Schneider, October 24, 1970. Some of the weapons were sent by diplomatic pouch (without telling the ambassador). The result surprised Nixon. Full of indignation about that Washington-organized assassination, even rightist Congressmen voted for Allende, who was duly elected president.
Allende launched a program of nationalizations, in particular of USA owned banks and copper mines. He also launched a national health program, free milk in schools, a pursuit of the land redistribution program already started under his predecessor, Eduardo Frei. Behaving exactly like the Roman Republic of old, the Chilean government limited the latifundia (large farms) to 80 hectares. That too was part of Allende’s electoral platform.
Allende brought up the lowest wages by up to 30%, while slowing inflation by a third. Fiscal spending went up from 21% to 27% of GDP. A huge housing program was launched.
The CIA convinced key Chilean military officers to carry out a coup. USA Defense Intelligence Agency agents secured the missiles used to bombard La Moneda Presidetial Palace (the film of the bombardment is easy to access on the Internet).
In light of all this, what to do with Mr. Blow’s optimism?
“The rich have recovered, but the rest still struggle. This cannot long stand,” sings Blow. Why could not it stand? After plutocracy took power in Rome, it took more than 1,800 years for the a fully democratic constitution to return, in France in 1789 (contrarily to what Obama claimed last week, the Constitution of the USA, as it allowed for racial slavery until 1865, was not truly democratic). Interestingly, the Roman empire itself had officially returned by 800 CE. Thus democracy is more fragile than plutocracy!
Blows hopes that:“Extreme levels of inequality are politically untenable and morally unacceptable, and that eventually the 99 percent will demand better. “
Well it was unacceptable that the government of the USA would kill high Chilean authorities, just because American plutocrats owned the world’s largest copper mines in Chili. But where is the inquiry? There is a lot of flag waving on 9/11. But how many Americans know there are two 9/11s, and that, in a deep sense, both were engineered at the highest levels of the USA?
The inquiry in the death of the UN general-secretary was recently reopened, 52 years after the fact. Dag Hammarskjöld was shot down by the usual suspects (Anglo-Saxon mining plutocrats) and it was covered-up by the usual suspects (their accomplices in the USA-UK governments).
Unfortunately, instead of reopening the past to examine it carefully, right now the majority seems to be demanding that dictators be allowed to gas children in peace. Instead of asking what happened on 9/11 in 1973, the majority seems to be inspired by Uncle Vlad, the way it used to be inspired by uncle Joe.
The economic theory in use today is, simply, wrong. First, to measure the economy, it evaluates riches, in other words, how the wealthy are doing.
Salvador Allende, president of Chili, had made a superb discourse at the United Nations, much applauded, where he explained that corporations answered to no one, and were above the law. This is why Nixon gave the order to “smash Allende“. And Allende was smashed. To this day, how many thousands were killed is unknown.
“Eventually the 99 percent will demand better,” dreams Blow optimistically. However the only reason Martin Luther King was allowed to dream was because president Eisenhower had stood and delivered.
Ike comically said:”Earl [Warren, Supreme Court chief] wants big black negroes to sit next to small white little girls at school.” It was innocuously funny: Ike did send the army to enforce desegregation in schools in the 1950s. He did not ask Congress (against!) or public opinion (against!). The dream came after the fact.
Meanwhile in Chili, the daughters of two generals who were neighbors and good friends until 9/11 are running for the presidency. Ms Matthei’s father, Gen Fernando Matthei became a senior goon of Pinochet.
Ms Bachelet has already been president (one cannot do two presidencies in a row in Chili). She will probably win again (as her first presidency was excellent). Her father, General Alberto Bachelet, remained loyal to the Republican Constitution. He was arrested, tortured and killed. She wants to re-examine what happened on 9/11/73. So things are looking up in Chili.
Less so at that point in the USA. Hence the need for Professor in Chief Obama to enlighten the obscure masses, with basic lessons in ethics and strategy: “crimes against humanity are intolerable, repeat after me!”
What the 66% have been demanding is that crimes against humanity be left unpunished. Why should the 66% demand an equitable society, when they don’t want to stop a tyrant who gaz children?
In any case, it’s high time for the USA to examine the murderous interference of Nixon in the completely legal government of a country that had been fully constitutionally democratic for about as long as the USA itself. And it’s high time not to forget that the same advisers who were behind Nixon (such as Kissinger and Friedman and Kaiser) were also the creators of the so called neo-liberal order. Which is neither new, nor liberal. But drenched in blood, inequity, misery, and the old tradition of killing people one cannot rob in peace.
Patrice Ayme
