In reading the news today I was reminded of what a good thing it was for the fledgling United States that our differences with Britain were mainly differences over policy, rather than ideology. This meant that when the war was over, both sides soon realized that mending fences and working together for mutual benefit was better than holding a grudge and keeping hostilities going to everyone's detriment down through the years.
It's different when dealing with differences which are fundamentally ideological, especially when the enemy is bureaucratic socialism and the transnational socialist elites. When you struggle agains them, lose or win, they will come back after you again and again, down through the generations, until they wear you down, defeat and eventually destroy you. Their fervor is always strong because it is ideological and old grudges never fade because they are held by the institution rather than individuals. This is why a conflict with the radical left must end in victory and be followed by their ideological eradication and continued vigilance lest they rise up again.
The case of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori brought this to mind. Fujimori saved Peru from economic devastation and made it one of the most vibrant economies in the world, with capitalist reforms which led to a boom which actually carried on for more than a decade after he left office, despite the disastrous policies of the presidency of Alan Garcia of the ARPA. Fujimori also brought about the end of the 15-year reign of terror of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and brought Peru peace for the first time in generations. But Fujimori became a target of the international socialists for his opposition to marxism and support of capitalism, and the basic ideology of the Shining Path was mainstreamed into the APRA party with support from anti-capitalists in other South American countries. In 2000, the APRA forced Fujimori to step down as president after a legitimate election had put him in office.
To avoid persecution by the regime of President Alan Garcia, Fujimori had to flee his native Peru, but he returned to face trial in 2007 and was sentenced to 25 years on a variety of corruption, bribery and abuse of power charges. Now Fujimori's daughter is running for president against Garcia, and more charges have been brought against the jailed 71 year old former president, clearly intended to taint his daughter's campaign.
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— go to most recent comments1 - roger nowosielski
Not another one, Dave. And it's all in the title. Oh, well!
But since this is directed at the Peruvian situation, it must be OK. As long as not all of us are indicted - all of you, Communists, Socialists and Leftist, you know who you are! - we can breathe freely.
Carry on.
2 - Dr Dreadful
Montesinos was caught red-handed, but it turned out that he was just the tip of an iceberg of endemic rottenness in Fujimori's Peru. That shouldn't surprise anyone - it's the way things are done in South America.
It is ironic that Fujimori, having been run out of office for corruption, has been replaced by an even more bent and devious bugger in Garcia.
Now then. Peru is one of the poorest countries on the continent, has barely any infrastructure, no welfare state - and I mean none, whatsoever - and contains the largest shanty town in South America: Villa el Salvador, just outside Lima.
Like much of South America, there is affluence - for a few. There is grinding poverty for many.
Whatever Fujimori's accomplishments, I'd hardly be touting the country as a capitalist success story.
And considering Dave's clarion calls for us to destroy ACORN over a few dodgy voter registrations, it's a bit rich of him to ask us to overlook Pinochet's atrocities on the grounds that Chile enjoys a more stable economy than it used to have.
3 - Dave Nalle
Dr. D., except for 2 years under Garcia's first administration, Peru has averaged over 6% GDP growth since the start of Fujimori's first term. No other country in S. America can match that sustained record of growth. Wan't to bet how long that's going to last with Garcia and the APRA back in power?
And yes, Dr. D., it's all about the economy. If a country is rich, that wealth brings freedom and opportunity. Oppressive, socialist governments destroy wealth and opportunity by their very nature.
But since this is directed at the Peruvian situation, it must be OK. As long as not all of us are indicted - all of you, Communists, Socialists and Leftist, you know who you are! - we can breathe freely.
I certainly hope not. I think every single person who subscribes to these philosophies is a potential tyrant looking for an opportunity.
Dave
4 - Ruvy
Gee,Dave,
Good thng that the coup in Chile was not in Washington instead. Otherwise my birthday (11 September) would have been ruined when I was 16. Do you really have to defend Pinochet? The guy was murder on Chile.
5 - Clavos
It is ironic that Fujimori, having been run out of office for corruption, has been replaced by an even more bent and devious bugger in Garcia.
No real irony, Doc, just SOP for LatAm.
6 - Cindy
Dave,
What the hell kind of person for liberty thinks like this, Dave? You have been supporting dictatorships and totalitarian regimes in service of your beliefs all along. Every time I have called you out on some US-friendly dictator being installed by the US, in place of democratically chosen leaders, you've handed me some trumped up rubbish about people not being ready for democracy. You support child slavery, sweatshops, and abuse of human beings by corporations. Because they're the good guys! You make claims like legalized prostitution works, when you've never investigated your claims.
Pinochet, was a murderous torturing dictator! A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy. (That's from the anti-Capitalist Washington Post, btw).
This is from the Commie rag the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"[Fujimori's] populist rhetoric, includ[ed] criticism of the economic shock tactics advocated by the conservative candidate, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. In June 1990 Fujimori defeated Vargas Llosa in a runoff election with 56.5 percent of the vote. However, on August 8, less than two weeks after taking office, Fujimori instituted austerity measures as harsh as those he earlier had decried, including raising the price of gasoline by 3,000 percent. The policy--popularly known as “Fujishock--wiped out inflation but caused immediate layoffs and hardships among the poor.
In April 1992, increasingly frustrated with the legislature, which supported few of his programs, Fujimori staged an autogolpe (“self-administered coup”) with military support, declaring a state of emergency, dissolving Congress, and calling for a new constitution (promulgated in 1993). Fujimori’s political allies subsequently won a majority of legislative seats, which allowed the president to rule nearly unopposed. On the economic front, he carried out neoliberal policies such as privatizing state-owned mines and utility companies. Fujimori’s government also prosecuted an anti-insurgency campaign on various fronts, including arming villagers and conducting secretive military trials of suspected terrorists.
Vladimiro Montesinos, head of the country’s secret police and Fujimori’s closest adviser, increased his influence in the military and used the country’s secret police to infiltrate opposition political parties, bribe legislators and electoral officials, muzzle the media, embezzle and redirect government funds, and carry out human rights abuses, including illegal arrests and torture. Many Peruvians subsequently accused Fujimori of condoning those acts and of destroying relevant evidence, though he denied the charges."
7 - roger nowosielski
Here's another good source on South American politics, Chilean in particular:
Isabel Allende.
I believe that she and her family have personally experienced the beneficent rule of our Señor Pinochet.
8 - roger nowosielski
An excerpt from the link above:
"In 1981, when Allende learned that her grandfather, aged 99, was on his deathbed, she started writing him a letter that later evolved into a book manuscript, The House of the Spirits (1982); the intent of this work was to exorcise the ghosts of the Pinochet dictatorship."
9 - Clavos
I believe that she and her family have personally experienced the beneficent rule of our Señor Pinochet.
How was Chile under her spouse, Salvador, Roger? Especially as regards her economy under his Marxist vision? What about labor relations during his regime? The military?
10 - Cindy
Dave is completely prepared to sacrifice blood, sweat, tears--even life itself (of other people, of course). It's for a good cause--freedom and liberty!
In Dave's world there is nothing that can't be viewed as a commodity.
11 - roger nowosielski
Not a happy chapter either - I presume.
Salvador.
So I had better read up on it.
12 - roger nowosielski
#10:
Do you mean it's a fetish with him?
13 - Clavos
Correction, Roger, my bad. Isabel is Salvador's cousin, not his wife.
14 - Dave Nalle
Regarding Allende, it's a classic logical fallacy of the ad hominem, where the left assumes that anything Allende did is automatically excused and he is a de-facto saint, because he was overthrown by the US (who are always automatically wrong) or because the alternative was Pinochet (despite the huge improvements Pinochet made in liberty, opportunity and wealth during his rule) and Pinochet is evil because he was a capitalist and a dictator.
And yes, everything IS a commodity, Cindy. It's all weighed in the balance. The 3000 killed by Pinochet are weighed against the hundreds of thousands suffering in poverty and despair under Marxist rule over the years in Chile and you have to ask which way the scale tips. Is enormous and widespread suffering and enslavement better or worse than a few thousand deaths? Is having underpaid jobs and opportunity better or worse than having no jobs and no liberty and being supported by the state?
Sometimes you have to make these choices and set priorities. I put the premium on liberty. Cindy presumably puts it on safety, security and the all-healing embrace of the state.
Dave
15 - roger nowosielski
It's a mixed bad, Clavos, as best I can tell, riddled with the complexity of South American politics, US intervention, you name it.
One needs to be an expert on the region to really understand the dynamics. He seemed like a good, honest man.
16 - Dr Dreadful
and Pinochet is evil because he was a capitalist and a dictator.
No, he was evil because he was a murdering sonofabitch.
despite the huge improvements Pinochet made in liberty, opportunity and wealth during his rule
Did he make the trains run on time too?
The 3000 killed by Pinochet...
...and the 80,000 imprisoned without trial, the 30,000 tortured, the 200,000 exiled...
17 - roger nowosielski
Well, why should he be overthrown by the US? You mean because we had the interest of the Chilean people at heart? I don't think you're going to go as far as say that, Dave.
And who knows the extent to which the US boycotts haven't contributed to the deterioration of the Chilean economy.
Furthermore, it's not all that apparent that the Chilean people were deprived of their freedoms under Allende. Unless you mean of course the freedom of the rich landowners and the business class to do what they do best. So yes, certain economic freedoms were "taken away," if you like - as is always the case under the socialist regime. But what of the freedom of the rest not to starve - and for a while, their life situation was greatly improved.
Of course, it wasn't a success story, so it's easy to affix the blame.
18 - roger nowosielski
I know that the source is going to be discredited by some, but the idea of privatizing Social Security that for a while was a hot item during the first term of Bush Administration was taken directly from Mr. Pinochet's playbook:
LaRouche.
19 - roger nowosielski
Another "questionable" publication, but it looks like the US mainstream press shies away from this issue.
20 - Baritone
Dave has said more than once that democracy is a bad idea. Capitalizm and free enterprise always trumps every other concern. Dave is the champion of the small businessman no matter where he lives and no matter what the cost. He has shown repeatedly that the bottom line is all that matters. He wrongheadedly believes that profit excuses all and heals all.
It frankly pisses me off that he so often charges everyone on the left with pretty much every kind of heinous crime and that we should, at all costs be defeated for once and for all. What he is advocating is war, and I don't believe that is limited to ideology.
Any acts of violence from the right are apparently, in Dave's mind, justified so long as the bottom line remains in the black. What's a few thousand murders so long as entrepreneurs remain profitable.
As I see it, ideology has little to do with success or failure of Latin American regimes. Regimes in many Central and South American countries from both the left and right have proven to be equally murderous and corrupt.
B
21 - roger nowosielski
And that's a very unfortunate thing, B-man. It's as if all of Latin America was still in the grip of feudal relations - almost like Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.
And that's perhaps why they're all so prone to revolutions, military dictatorships and foreign interventions. And the West still thinks of the region as one big colony.
22 - roger nowosielski
But you're right about one thing, Dave, when you say that "it's different when dealing with differences which are fundamentally ideological" (rather than practical).
Because when it comes to ideology, especially left ideology, no one is above suspicion. Which explains the reign of Thermidor.
23 - Cindy
I'll go with what Dr.D already said, plus:
Sometimes you have to make these choices and set priorities. I put the premium on liberty.
Me too Dave, I put a premium on liberty. Yet, I don't have to make choices to support things like that. That is your choice. Of course, I see, your plan is working out great. Tell that to the dead. Where's their liberty?
Cindy presumably puts it on safety, security and the all-healing embrace of the state.
No Dave. Don't be silly. I put the interests of human beings first not corporations or governments. No one requires the right to abuse other people and wreck up the world competing to make 1000 of the same thing. People have brains, markets don't. People can plan what they need. Markets are inefficient. Wasting everything from the world to human beings.
And this is your best idea for liberty.
Go to sleep and have a nice dream. Maybe you'll wake up with some love in your heart.
24 - roger nowosielski
This is a great line:
"the right to abuse other people and wreck up the world competing to make 1000 of the same thing."
Reminds me of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times.
25 - roger nowosielski
Perhaps Dave should see this classic and he just wake up with a changed heart.