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84 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
The CIA keeps us safe? Not fit to lead and protect this great country?
That's exactly what the right wing nut jobs said about Obama.
This is Democratic Underground, websites who welcome that kind of rhetoric are that way ----->
At first I saw this: I'm with Bernie (TM), so my knee jerk reaction was WTF?
http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres8/BLUMkillinghope.pdf
William Blum serves up a forensic overview of U.S. foreign policy spanning sixty years. For those who want the details on our most famous actions (Chile, Cuba, Vietnam, to name a few), and for those who want to learn about our lesser-known efforts (France, China, Bolivia, Brazil, for example), this book provides a window on what our foreign policy goals really are.
If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out… invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … occupations … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing “news” … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries …
It’s not a pretty picture. It’s enough to give imperialism a bad name.
Read the full details in: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
“Far and away the best book on the topic.” – Noam Chomsky
“I enjoyed it immensely.” – Gore Vidal
“I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks.” – Oliver Stone
“A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive.” – A. J. Langguth, author, former New York Times Bureau Chief
“A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important.” –Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
“Each chapter I read made me more and more angry.” – Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of the anti-nuclear and environmental movements
http://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope/
If you flip over the rock of American foreign policy of the past century, this is what crawls out… invasions … bombings … overthrowing governments … occupations … suppressing movements for social change … assassinating political leaders … perverting elections … manipulating labor unions … manufacturing “news” … death squads … torture … biological warfare … depleted uranium … drug trafficking … mercenaries …
It’s not a pretty picture. It’s enough to give imperialism a bad name.
Read the full details in: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.
“Far and away the best book on the topic.” – Noam Chomsky
“I enjoyed it immensely.” – Gore Vidal
“I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks.” – Oliver Stone
“A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive.” – A. J. Langguth, author, former New York Times Bureau Chief
“A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important.” –Thomas Powers, author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
“Each chapter I read made me more and more angry.” – Dr. Helen Caldicott, international leader of the anti-nuclear and environmental movements
http://williamblum.org/books/killing-hope/
Remainder of the primary. 
"We will not let Chile go down the drain".
Operating on behalf of Nixon and Wall Street, the CIA and Milton Friedman & Friends perfected the art of turning the screws through austerity in Chile.
Too bad, so sad about all the little people who didn't go along with the big plan. Oh well. "Progress."
"The Chicago Boys in Chile: Economic Freedom's Awful Toll"
Orlando Letelier
August 28, 1976
EXCERPT...
The Economic Prescription and Chile's Reality
SNIP...
These are the basic principles of the economic model offered by Friedman and his followers and adopted by the Chilean junta: that the only possible framework for economic development is one within which the private sector can freely operate; that private enterprise is the most efficient form of economic organization and that, therefore, the private sector should be the predominant factor in the economy. Prices should fluctuate freely in accordance with the laws of competition. Inflation, the worst enemy of economic progress, is the direct result of monetary expansion and can be eliminated only by a drastic reduction of government spending.
Except in present-day Chile, no government in the world gives private enterprise an absolutely free hand. That is so because every economist (except Friedman and his followers) has known for decades that, in the real life of capitalism, there is no such thing as the perfect competition described by classical liberal economists. In March 1975, in Santiago, a newsman dared suggest to Friedman that even in more advanced capitalist countries, as for example the United States, the government applies various types of controls on the economy. Mr. Friedman answered: I have always been against it, I don't approve of them. I believe we should not apply them. I am against economic intervention by the government, in my own country, as well as in Chile or anywhere else (Que Pasa, Chilean weekly, April 3, 1975).
SNIP...
A Rationale tor Power
SNIP...
Until September 11, 1973, the date of the coup, Chilean society had been characterized by the increasing participation of the working class and its political parties in economic and social decision making. Since about 1900, employing the mechanisms of representative democracy, workers had steadily gained new economic, social and political power. The election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile was the culmination of this process. For the first time in history a society attempted to build socialism by peaceful means. During Allende's time in office, there was a marked improvement in the conditions of employment, health, housing, land tenure and education of the masses. And as this occurred, the privileged domestic groups and the dominant foreign interests perceived themselves to be seriously threatened.
Despite strong financial and political pressure from abroad and efforts to manipulate the attitudes of the middle class by propaganda, popular support for the Allende government increased significantly between 1970 and 1973. In March 1973, only five months before the military coup, there were Congressional elections in Chile. The political parties of the Popular Unity increased their share of the votes by more than 7 percentage points over their totals in the Presidential election of 1970. This was the first time in Chilean history that the political parties supporting the administration in power gained votes during a midterm election. The trend convinced the national bourgeoisie and its foreign supporters that they would be unable to recoup their privileges through the democratic process. That is why they resolved to destroy the democratic system and the institutions of the state, and, through an alliance with the military, to seize power by force.
In such a context, concentration of wealth is no accident, but a rule; it is not the marginal outcome of a difficult situation -- as they would like the world to believe -- but the base for a social project; it is not an economic liability but a temporary political success. Their real failure is not their apparent inability to redistribute wealth or to generate a more even path of development (these are not their priorities) but their inability to convince the majority of Chileans that their policies are reasonable and necessary. In short, they have failed to destroy the consciousness of the Chilean people. The economic plan has had to be enforced, and in the Chilean context that could be done only by the killing of thousands, the establishment of concentration camps all over the country, the jailing of more than 100,000 persons in three years, the closing of trade unions and neighbourhood organizations, and the prohibition of all political activities and all forms of free expression.
While the Chicago boys have provided an appearance of technical respectability to the laissez-faire dreams and political greed of the old landowning oligarchy and upper bourgeoisie of monopolists and financial speculators, the military has applied the brutal force required to achieve those goals. Repression for the majorities and economic freedom for small privileged groups are in Chile two sides of the same coin.
CONTINUED...
http://www.ditext.com/letelier/chicago.html
Three weeks after this was published in The Nation (Aug. 28, 1976), Orlando Letelier was assassinated by a car bomb in Washington, D.C.
FWIW: Then-CIA Director George Herbert Walker Bush knew all about Operation Condor and didn't stop them from killing Orlando Letelier and his American companion, Ronni Moffit.
DCI Bush even told then-Congressman Ed Koch (D-NY), threatened anonymously for his work uncovering Operation Condor and its associated evil at the time, "Nothing I can do."
Why does this matter today? What the CIA and Big Money Boys did in Chile in 1973 was a dry run for what they're doing to the USA today.
A Critique of the Chicago School of Economics:
CHILE: THE LABORATORY TEST
EXCERPT...
Chile's privatized pensions
One of the most trumpeted "successes" of Chile's economic miracle is the privatization of its public social security system. It's most vocal supporter is Chilean economist José Piñera, who was once Pinochet's Minister of Labor, and therefore one of the most hated men in Chile. Today he is an international salesman of sorts, selling other nations on the idea of Chile's retirement program. Journalist Fred Solowey writes:
"In his speeches and articles, Piñera credits the Chilean pension model with producing just about everything short of the second coming of Christ: pensions that are 40-50 percent higher than under Social Security; security for the old; lower costs due to the 'fact' that the private sector is much more efficient than the public; a rate of savings rivaling that in an Asian 'tiger' economy; and even the end of class conflict in Chile." (38)
Piñera is co-chairman of a $2 million war being waged against U.S. Social Security by the Cato Institute. Their goal is to privatize the program along Chilean lines. Converts to their cause include Newt Gingerich, and, apparently, Time magazine. In a cover story entitled "The Case for Killing Social Security," Time included a sidebar on "How Chile Got it Right." (39) The operative word here is right, as in right-wing — Time's article quotes all the usual conservative think tanks, but not a single dissenting voice.
The Chilean retirement system is only a success to those companies who are pulling down outrageous profits from it. For the working people of Chile, it is a disaster in the making. According to SAFP, the government agency which regulates the private pensions, 96 percent of the known work force were enrolled in the private pensions as of February, 1995, but 43.4 percent of the account owners were not adding to their funds. Perhaps as many as 60 percent do not contribute regularly. Given the rising poverty in Chile, it is not difficult to understand why. Unfortunately, regular contributions are necessary to receive full benefits.
By 1988, about one fourth of Chilean workers were contributing enough to make the program's minimum benefits: $1.25 a day! (40) Critics charge that only 20 percent of the contributors will actually receive good pensions.
Worse, much of the plan's supposedly higher benefits are projected from the surging economic growth rates of the late 80s. But this growth followed a deep economic depression in 1983, and was bound to be high for many years following. Now that actual growth has caught up to potential growth, the Chilean economy is slowing down. The pensions are therefore not going to be as profitable as their cheerleaders claim.
When the current system was created in the early 80s, the government gave the people their choice: stay in the public program, or start contributing to private pensions. Over 90 percent of the people switched over to the private plan. This was carried out, however, under a mixture of threats, coercion and short term incentives. Many employers simply switched their employees' plans for them. The cash-starved public also received short-term pay increases by switching to private pensions, whereas the cost of the public programs went up for those who stayed in them.
"With the information I now have," says Cecilia Prado, a 17-year public employee, "I never would have switched. Under a democratic government they never could have imposed it on us. And if they ever passed a law allowing people to go back, there would be a great exodus." (41)
What many defenders of Chile's current program do not reveal is that under the old public plan, workers received not only pensions, but health care, low-interest housing loans from pension funds, and many other benefits. And that program covered 75 percent of all Chileans. When the private pensions went into effect, all these other services were dropped. As a result, Chile's "welfare pensions" for the desperately needy quickly rose 400 percent — up to the legal limit.
It is also extremely telling that when Pinochet introduced the program, his army and police were allowed to keep their own generous public plans. The private plans that were suitable for the masses apparently weren't good enough for those in charge of the country.
CONTINUED...
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-chichile.htm
José Piñera is now working out of the Cato Institute, where the Koch Brothers are big.
Regarding Austerity: They know if We the People are sufficiently worried about keeping a roof over the family and food on the table, We won't have much time to worry about little stuff like Democracy.
More on the subject: from the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
Wonder what else they got in store for the USA?
