"Chile has done this..."

[paft.livejournal.com]

Sharron Angle, on her keen new idea for "helping" Social Security:

So when I said 'privatize' that's what I meant, that I thought we would just have to go to the private sector for a template on how this is supposed to be done. However, I've since been studying and Chile has done this...

Last week Sharron Angle dropped a rather oblique, admiring reference to a man who's been an enduring hero to a significant number of right wingers -- Augusto Pinochet. Whether it's Jonah Goldberg's notorious LA Times piece about how Pinochet's crimes created a "civil society," or the repulsive efforts by the likes of Otto Reich to paint Pinochet as a "tragic figure" unfairly reviled, or Jose Pinera's absurd claim that the responsibility for Pinochet's atrocities lie with Salvador Allende, many on the right plainly admire Pinochet and regard him as Chile's savior.

The question I have for American Pinochet apologists is simple. If the crimes of Pinochet -- the overturning of a democratically elected leader, the mass round-up, torture and murder of leftists and liberals, the people "disappeared" over the years, the grotesque crimes at Villa Grimaldi -- if they feel all that was worthwhile and necessary (if regrettable) in fighting Communism, why would they not feel the same way about using similar methods here?

If they believe it was, in the long run, okay to terrorize Chilean leftists in order to stabilize Chile's economy, why would they not also believe it's, in the long run, okay to terrorize American "leftists" (as they describe Democrats, liberals, and pretty much anyone who supports Obama) to stabilize the American economy?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My own question is how any group of people who admire a murderous douchebag like that can complain about Progressives admiring Hugo Chavez, who unlike *President Obama* has not put a hit on any Venezuealan citizens at home and unlike *President Putin* has also not done so on citizens abroad.

[rev-proffessor.livejournal.com]

IOKIYA Conservative. Have you not seen all the posts from Melvin, SteveP, et al, about how Leftist murders are way Way WAY worse than anyone else. It's self explanatory (and totally nutz)and aw hell yea...

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'...who unlike *President Obama* has not put a hit on any Venezuealan citizens at home and unlike *President Putin* has also not done so on citizens abroad. '

Crazy people actually believe this.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I always wonder why you find it necessary to argue with strawmen in almost every post.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

Is there anymore to her quote?

From a wire story about this...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle says the nation's Social Security system needs to be privatized, and that it was done before in the South American country of Chile.

Angle referred to Chile at the opening of a campaign office in North Las Vegas while explaining previous statements that the United States should phase out its Social Security system.

"When I said privatize, that's what I meant," she said Thursday.

"I thought we would have to go just to the private sector for a template on how this is supposed to be done," Angle said. "However, I've since been studying, and Chile has done this."

On Friday, the campaign said Angle's comments were misconstrued and she believes the federal government can manage a personalized system in which workers choose their retirement plans.

Angle spokesman Jarrod Agen said she referenced Chile as an example because its system has helped that country's economy — not because it was run privately.

"The majority of workers choose a personal investment system and the country's economic conditions have greatly improved because of it," Agen said.

When created, Chile's pension system required salaried workers to deposit at least 10 percent of their wages into personal accounts managed by private pension funds.

Since 1990, 10 other Latin American countries have adopted what's become known as the "Chilean model," including Argentina, Bolivia and Mexico, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration.

However, the pioneering pension system right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet established in 1981 is no longer fully private. Reforms in 2008 expanded public pensions for about one-third of the country's work force — people like farmers and others in the country's informal economy who were left behind by private accounts.

Since winning the GOP primary election in June, Angle has wrestled with her rhetoric several times in campaign ads and interviews about the need to change Social Security.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's about it. She was referring to the privatization of the Chilean system under Augusto Pinochet.

Not surprising she would find something he's done appealing, given her comments about "2nd Amendment remedies."

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

I don't think they'd have much of a problem with terrorizing leftists. The historical question though, why would the US secret services at the time support someone as criminal as Pinochet? Would the US have been just as enthusiastic in supporting Franco or Mussolini, since they were also anti-communist ideologically? And yet, I understand that ironically criminal regimes can also create good things.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The USA supported Pinochet because all Communists were held to be inherently equal in terms of evil and all puppets of the Soviet Union. This was in no small part why US adventurism never ended well because a good deal of the time it wasn't. The USA *did* back that ugly old fascist in Spain though Roosevelt had enough honor not to do the same with Mussolini.

Nothing new.

[vnsplshr.livejournal.com]

Nothing new.

Mao Tse Tung is one of White House communications director Anita Dunn's favorite philosophers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704597704574487431322664964.html

Re: Nothing new.

[paft.livejournal.com]

I've not noticed many liberals, even Anita Dunn, citing Mao as China's savior and embracing his policies, including his crimes against human rights as the path to making China a "civil society."

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

But you must vote for her or swarthy mexicans will eat your children.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've done quite a bit of research on this subject, specifically, the right-wing's long-standing fondness for Pinochet and his methods. No, I don't think Angle herself knows much about Pinochet. She doesn't strike me as either very bright or very well-educated. Which brings me to the real point I was trying to make. I think she's parroting what she's heard other right-wingers say about him, in particular Jose Pinera of the Cato Institute, who used to work for the Pinochet regime, and who even wrote about about how it's really Allende who's responsible for all those liberals and leftists Pinochet murdered.

It's what I call the tails-I-win, heads-you-lose approach to human rights that many conservatives have embraced. When leftists like Pol Pot torture and murder right-wingers it's a sign of how inherently depraved leftism is. And when right-wingers like Pinochet torture and murder leftists, it's ALSO a sign of how inherently depraved leftism is because the right-wingers were driven to do it.

wow you love talking about this

[http://users.livejournal.com/aviation_/]

Not every reference to Chilean government is about Pinochet. Making reference to Chile today... well... Pinochet is fucking dead. Chile has had an elected president for twenty years and things have improved there since then. We can have a discussion about Chilean policy without it constituting as fawning over an awful dictator.
Hugo Chávez is CURRENTLY IN POWER when we talk about Venezuela

Re: wow you love talking about this

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And Chavez has never put a hit on his domestic or expatriate opposition. That makes him better than Presidents Obama and Putin both.

Re: wow you love talking about this

[paft.livejournal.com]

When the reference to Pinochet's regime is made by someone who's broadly hinted that an armed insurrection is the proper response to an election not going the way you want it to, then Pinochet's use of violence is definitely part of the equation.

No-no-notorious!

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

*waits for all the Pinochet worshiping right-wingers to show up and provide back up for Paft's uncited allegations*

I imagine it will be a long time, as not even Paft's attempt to point to people who allegedly claimed Pinochet was great didn't really say that (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-goldberg14dec14,0,2786192.column).

Let's put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) "worse." Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet.

No-no-notorious (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/219461/pinochet-history/nro-symposium), indeed!

Augusto Pinochet was a tragic figure. Instead of being remembered for saving Chilean democracy from a communist takeover, and starting the country on the longest-lasting economic expansion in Latin America, which he did, he will be remembered mostly for carrying out a brutal campaign of human-rights abuses.

...

What was not justified was the bloodbath which followed, when Allende supporters and innocents alike were summarily executed, imprisoned and tortured, including loyal military officers who disagreed with the coup.

Apparently pointing out that bad guy #1 had better economic policies than bad guy #2 is a no-no (notorious!) when bad guy #2 is an avowed Communist.

Re: No-no-notorious!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. Nobody commemorates Fujimori for what he did, when unlike Pinochet he really *did* save a state from disintegration due to Communist chicanery. Alberto Fujimori really is what the Right Wing lies to say Pinochet was. He even was a leader who came from Peru itself as opposed to requiring foreign backers to get into and to stay in power.

Re: No-no-notorious!

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Give it up Jake. This is Chinatown.

Re: No-no-notorious!

[paft.livejournal.com]

"Reality_Hammer" incompletely quotes Jonah Goldberg: Let's put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) "worse." Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet.

And he goes on to say, "Pinochet's abuses helped create a civil society."

That's pretty straightforward, I would say. Not Pinochet created a civil society IN SPITE OF HIS ABUSES. Nope, Pinochet's abuses HELPED CREATE A CIVIL SOCIETY. Sure, Goldberg says it seemed initially kind of groady when Pinochet's men herded all those people into a stadium, raped, tortured, maimed and murdered at the Villa Grimaldi, disappeared people, and left the bullet-riddled body of a much loved songwriter and musician where the musician's widow could find it. But all was to the good! It helped create a "civil society!"

As for Otto Reich, I wonder exactly what he imagines is involved military coups? I mean, it's nice that he thinks Pinochet should have stopped at overturning through force a popular, democratically elected leader, but what does he think is likely to follow?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Person 1:"Hey you know Bob down the street paid off his mortgage years early and saved a ton of money by adding 1/13th of his mortgage to each payment, maybe we should do the same".


Person 2:"What kind of a sick fucking pervert would suggest we do anything that a convicted child molester did"


In other words even evil people have good ideas sometimes and we should not reject them out of hand because of their source.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except this idea completely failed when put into practice. So if we are to imitate the failures of other societies......

There must be something in the sand.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the woman who is attempting to unseat Harry Reid? I don't know what is wrong in the deserts of Nevada these days. With Harry Reid coming out against the "ground zero mosque," I suspect that there is something in the sand. Perhaps it's radioactive waste left over from weapons testing.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

As a Tea Party member, I gotta say that unfortunately, they support some REALLY screwed up candidates. Hello? DEMON SHEEP! WTF?!?
I actually had someone ream me a new one for supporting Linda McMahon over Schiff for CT Senate! They accused me of not being a member of the Tea Party because I don't support Tea Party candidates. Sorry, I prefer to NOT be a sheep, thank you very much!

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

While I understand that Pinochet committed crimes against his country and humanity, that doesn't make everything his regime did bad. The fact that she chose a terrible example has nothing to do with the (in)validity of her argument.

You could find a lot of better examples that more directly state the Right's tolerance/encouragement of dictators. This statement was about SocSec, not about killing leftists and overthrowing Obama, no matter how much you try to twist it that way. Why not address it? I mean, I know that leaves less room for painting the other party as fascist inhuman militiaman revolutionaries with syphilis, but it's also somewhat, y'know, useful to political discourse.

[paft.livejournal.com]

anm: You could find a lot of better examples that more directly state the Right's tolerance/encouragement of dictators.

The right has been praising Pinochet with faint damns ever since he overthrew Allende. As I said to another poster here, I doubt Sharron Angle knows that much about him. She was probably parroting something she's heard better read right-wingers say.