Let's talk about September 11th.
No, not that September 11th. I mean September 11th, 1973, when the CIA, ITT corporation, Nixon and Kissinger coordinated a military coup overthrowing a democratically-elected regime under Salvador Allende and imposing the world's first genuinely neoliberal government under a junta headed by Augusto Pinochet. So okay here's the death toll:
From the start of the new military government harsh measures were implemented.[10] During the period of Pinochet's rule, various investigations have identified the murder of 1,200 to 3,200 people with up to 80,000 people forcibly interned and as many as 30,000 tortured.[11][12][13] According to the Chilean government, the official number of deaths and forced disappearances stands at 3,095.[14]
And what was the point? Kees van der Pijl, from Global Rivalries from the Cold War to Iraq:
Chile's isolation under the terror regime of the junta allowed a drastic reversal of economic policy, unmitigated by international institutions or even inhibitions among the military. A year after the coup, with thousands murdered among the military. A year after the coup, with thousands murdered and trade union activity suspended, the wage share in the national product was reduced by almost half, while the state's budget deficit was brought down from 24.7 per cent in 1973 to 2.6 percent in 1975. Building on these first steps, a group of advisers around Milton Friedman, working with the junta's own economic experts, then elaborated the shock therapy that should guide the terror-stricken country into the promised land of neoliberalism once and for all. As Friedman emphasized in a letter to Pinochet, the restructuring was not meant as a shift in economic policy only, but intended to remake society entirely. (184)
The earlier 9/11, then, was then basically to establish the incubator regime for the neoliberal transformation of world society which we see today. The copycat 9/11, the one in 2001, then, was a fortuitous event, helped along by the US government in ways we will probably never know, which provided George W. Bush with the public pretext for the wars he so desperately wanted. It was no doubt the kickoff event for the "global war on terror," but the morasses in Israel and in Iraq (at that time) already provided a pretext for that sort of thing, and, to be sure, the US had already been working overtime to stir up a state of permanent global warfare -- one especially prominent example of this strategy had been the US supplying both sides in the especially-bloody Iran-Iraq War. (This is not to count the state of chronic warfare incited by the US in the whole of Central and South America, as reported with especial thoroughness by William Blum.) The earlier 9/11, however, was a foundational event, meant to replace the populist Keynesianism of the Fifties and Sixties with global neoliberalism.
Global neoliberalism, meanwhile, dominates the world so thoroughly at this point that no alternative has become thinkable outside of the realm of utopian fantasy. Margaret "there is no alternative" Thatcher has won, and neoliberal doctrine has become the precondition for doing anything. What this means in practical terms is that all concerted large-scale social action must in this era go through markets. The rich will attain subsidy while the poor must be subjected to capitalist discipline. As Philip Mirowski points out in his book Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste, the "neoliberal thought collective" dominates all fields of social inquiry in the universities, the elite think tanks, and the elites themselves.
Back in the old days of Firedoglake (of which "Shadowproof" is an inadequate though well-meaning substitute) I remember that Mirowski had been invited to discuss his book. I asked him a couple of questions about the "neoliberal thought collective." He had no idea what sort of alternative to the neoliberal thought collective could possibly exist in this world.
As for the foundational event of 9/11 itself, there are a number of videos on YouTube -- some of them in Spanish (which will give us all an opportunity to brush up on our Spanish, ¿verdad?). I'm going to push discussion of the videos themselves into the comments section here. I don't know how much the particulars matter -- the US is good enough at finding proxies to do its dirty work, as Operation Condor revealed. At any rate, this is the 9/11 we must "never forget," 9/11/1973.
Comments
Doesn't have the same Conspiracy Theory cachet,
maybe because it was a real conspiracy and few if any people disagree with that. I hope this promotes fruitful discussion all the same.
But some days I have the feeling that it's all the squeals of kittens in a box on the way to the river.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Capitalism is prone to secular stagnation - slow growth - and to
keep the profits up and the profit margins high, monopoly capital needs to enlist powerful armed forces and concerted diplomatic pressure to keep expanding to exploit populations and resources in the global south. People who live in traditional societies with sustainable agriculture are prime targets because they are weak militarily and don't have the economic clout to play with Big Capital.
The Military/Industrial/Financial Complex has been at covert war with organized workers and countries that have resources coveted by Capital. The US military and NATO have been partners in this exploitation. Global capital wants the resources without the costs: This is behind Larry Summers statement that Africa is "underpolluted." This is why the US military has a presence in the majority of sub-Saharan African countries.
In southern Mexico, farmers are marginalized, or displaced, by the USA dumping subsidized corn(maize) onto their markets. School teachers who protest the lack of public school resources and shot and killed in the streets. The most dangerous thing for a Central American to be labeled as is an environmentalist: A employee of the government or corporation will kill with impunity.
American workers are suffering also. Manufacturing jobs - which tend to pay for then jobs in the service sector - have fallen to 8% of the workforce. Germany still have a manufacturing sector that employs 18% - Japan 15%.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Very glad to see that you give "credit" - blame really - to
that vile human being Milton Friedman, he of the U of Chicago and the Stanford Hoover Inst. Yes, as you point out, the takeover of Chile was meant to remake the country on the neoliberal model with the elimination of the middle class.
Chile had been touted as the South American country with the longest record of democratic elections prior the American influenced coup.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Oh, well *done*.
Maybe we could rename this day International Oligarchs' Day.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
That said, your diary does end on the note
that we probably can't do, or even think, anything about this, because nothing except neoliberalism can exist in a neoliberal world.
Hmm.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Certainly we can start to BUILD a counter-project.
But how many people around here are actually working on that?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Some of us are Cassiodorus
Some of us prefer to get lost in the horseshit of useless American politics and the endless 'progressive' factions of mass deception. I disagree that nothing can be done. If you look at what ordinary people are doing all over the world you will see that they are actually working on that. Protests globally and even here in the USA,USA,USA, eg: Standing Rock and the prison protest last week. On this site like other progressive sites, you get a partisan political view point as most of us were Democratic at one point in time.
Organizing politically outside the duopoly from hell will happen but at this point most of what's going on is still reactionary to political arena and the story line put out by the global oligarchical collectivist's. If your referring to the Green's small dent in the polls or whatever give it time. It will either grow into a viable party vehicle or not. I looked up the Green Party here in Portland as you suggested and there web page was pathetic. I looked up The Pacific Green Party whose website was better but still other then the presidential candidate Jill Stein who I'm voting for they do not seem to have the infrastructure or visible presence to get more the 3% of the vote. Many of us here are voting for Jill and any Green candidate that's on the ballot.
http://portlandgreens.org/
http://www.pacificgreens.org/about_us
I'm actually optimistic about people globally removing the blood sucking vampire off humanities face. All theses exist's, protests and demonstrations globally are just the beginning. As the neoliberal neocon's are not inevitable. They always say they are not.
http://portlandgreens.org/
I remember standing at the corner of Bay and High Streets
in Santa Cruz, California, right there across High Street from the barn and the big sign saying UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ, hitching a ride into town. It must have been four years ago. I got a ride with this young woman who told me that the cool people in Santa Cruz, the ones who weren't there for reasons related to money, had all pretty much left for Portland.
Meanwhile I still live in California, where the GPCA's webmaster still won't give me permission to comment on the site and in a place which hasn't seen a Green local since the passing of Walt Sheasby.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Well, I'm interested in creating a crowdfunded
network for indie media, all the way from bloggers like us up to Amy Goodman.
I actually like working on infrastructure.
Care to join?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What sort of groundwork have you done so far?
And why crowdfunding? Perhaps something like a media version of a Mondragon cooperative would be more empowering?
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
So many 911s ...
The Mountain Meadows Massacre happened on September 11, 1857 (trigger warning, link to TOP). There was also another 9-11 that doesn't get the attention it deserves and is more germane to this essay. On September 11, 1991, that's 10 years to the day before the Twin Towers were brought down, George H.W. Bush gave a speech before Congress in which he declared a New World Order. This NWO was the one pioneered in Chile, a Neoliberal World Order run by, and for, Anglo/American Finance Capital.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byxeOG_pZ1o]
And we musn't forget these 911s either.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl3uBRTNAUQ]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
When I lived in far SW Utah years ago, some locals were still
proud of the massacre.
It's also of interest, that locals in the Utah Natl Guard told me that part of their training was to keep Californians out of Utah in the event of a disaster of long duration.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
None of those 9/11s
have the same meaning within the world of political economy as 9/11/73. 1973, it must also be remembered, was the first year of the Trilateral Commission and of official dollar hegemony.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
And I was born in 1973
So place all the blame on me
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
That was merely your misfortune.
The real transition to the neoliberal era probably took place on the level of the plebes earlier, with the pro-war backlash against the shutdown of the universities at the end of the 1969-1970 school year, after the tragedies at Kent State and Jackson State. James Michener writes about the backlash in his book Kent State.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Pinochet was not neoliberal to start with
But after 2 years in power, the neoliberals, headed by Chileans who had studied at the University of Chicago under Milton Freidman, the Chicago Boys, volunteered to head his economic team.
One day over some beers I can tell you my extremely unusual experience when I almost became the reason why Allende almost shut down the CIA smuggling of guns for the coup organizers. Long story involving some real movie level action scenes.
BTW the neoliberal Chilean economy is in big trouble; Protesters demand reforms to Chile's private pension system
The political revolution continues
To be sure, neoliberal economics is insane.
This is the puzzle of human nature at present: that the world could cling to such insanity even when threatened with its own demise.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
I'd love to hear that story,
and have a few beers with you. Are you still in the L.A. area ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Still in LA
Let's hangout one day.
The political revolution continues
I'll be out there in the near future,
I'm not exactly sure when. I'll send you a message by c99mail.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
I Will Take You Up On That! Love Beer, and Travel.
And you are one of the people who kept me sane by sharing thoughts very similar to mine, which helped me realize I wasn't crazy.
I always love how hearing something that I believe from a trusted source is at once comfort and horror. Perhaps you can relate.
Anyway, what state are you in? I'll get in touch when we hit the road and we can share a beer or 3.
Peace~
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
I am an Angeleno
BTW you kept me sane too.
The political revolution continues
June 2017, If the World Doesn't End Before Then. nt
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
September 11, 1941 - Groundbreaking ceremony for the Pentagon
I would consider that a "foundational" event - 75 years ago to this day.
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
The people who chart the "Great Acceleration" --
that imagined phase of "overdrive" for what historians and geologists will probably call the "Anthropocene" -- often imagine it to have begun on July 16, 1945 at the Trinity site in New Mexico. 7/16, never forget.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Chart: worldwide nuclear testing
It's been a bad couple of months
because the oligarchy just shit on our heads, big time, and even some of us who kind of expected that conclusion did not respond well to it.
Maybe I'll write an essay about it. I thought we could just move on, but maybe we need an essay to vent in. Or maybe not.
So of course, we haven't been at our best. People who have had their heads shit on eight weeks ago never are.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's been a bad thirty-five years.
In which great masses of people blindly trudged onward, oblivious to the hold neoliberal political economy had on their lives. Oh, sure, we can change that.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
the blindness of the great masses is not my problem
I have other problems as an organizer, much worse ones.
The majority of the people don't need enlightenment from me at this juncture. Things have gotten so bad that the majority can now see how bad they are. Well--how bad the economic and political systems are; they are still in denial about how bad climate change will be.
A serious problem with the remnants of the Left, or the infant beginnings of the Left, or whatever it is we inhabit, is that we're stuck on the idea that the problem is ignorance and self-delusion and intellectual laziness--and either we're the solution, or there is no solution.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Speaking as an educator and as a writer --
It seems clear to me that people ought to know about, for instance, neoliberalism, not confusing it with liberalism, which until recently was a different phenomenon. I remember a lot of conversations at TOP (back before Markos's March 1 ultimatum) in which people would say that they were sick of that word "neoliberalism," confessing to everyone but themselves that they were in denial about it.
So we have this nice history of neoliberalism, of the Democratic Party being the alternative to the party of Reagan, and of the Democratic Party sponsoring candidate after candidate, from Dukakis to Clinton to Gore to Kerry to Obama to Clinton Two, all of them neoliberals, all of them promoting toxic policies in alignment with an elite consensus while Mr. Populist Michael Moore led the drill team in their honors.
There are plenty of people talking about how the public is being screwed, and about the general philosophy which pervades all of the screwing that is going on, but it's not as if the public really knows what neoliberalism is or how thoroughly it has pervaded the policy discussions which affect them. This is the service Philip Mirowski performs for us. Before him, of course, you had David Harvey, whose book I'd love to mass-mail to everyone on my Xmas list...
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
Stumbled on this over at Jacobin
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/09/chile-coup-santiago-allende-social-de...
Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.
For what it's worth--what did the usual suspects know?
Amid the chaos of 911
It was Hastert who was hiding out at Mount Weather?
We were pretty sure somebody was - it's the "secret hideout" that everybody knows all about and always has. America's Worst-Kept Secret.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I'll remember both 9/11's
If we compare body counts, so many more people lost their lives in Chile.
One was a terrorist attack, the other was a genocide.
To thine own self be true.
Lessons from Chile?
I read the Jacobin article pertaining to Salvador Allende's political dilemma and tried to put some of that into an American perspective. Not a CIA perspective. Not a PNAC perspective.
From this detailed article I came across 3 paragraphs, although I'm sure that more could be found, that illustrate a semblance of what Bernie would be facing were he to be the Democratic Party nominee and actually win the presidency:
Two things in the above paragraphs have not occurred--yet. Great changes have not occurred although a massive political awakening has occurred in the U.S. The second point is that for great change to occur in a political system to occur that there needs to be a massive replacement of higher and perhaps medium levels of the bureaucracy. Only a massive landslide vote for Bernie--or any presidential candidate will be able to accomplish this.
The third factor is resoluteness of purpose. I sense this mood is present to a large degree in c99 and at least some of the other progressive sites I have encountered. Purity of purpose must be compromised with practicality of accomplishment. Compromise does not mean partial surrender of important goals. It means the progressive augmentation of policy to aid the 99%. Example: The Fight For $15 is well on its way to be widely adopted. But its manner of adoption while be phased in over a relatively brief period of time. Other national problems suitable for progressive remediation also lend themselves to this defined period, but relatively brief, of accommodation to changed circumstance.
The lesson Chile is not the meddling of CIA and large corporation meddling, although that certainly was important. The message of Allende's overthrow, as I understand it, was his failure to build what we might nowadays call a "mandate" by enough of the governed to accomplish and then solidify his goals.
What a very cool take on September 11!
I don't mean that the coup was cool.
Of course, gulfgal98's series on neoliberalism is the best resource for those wanting to know about neoliberalism. However, a good overview helps me stay focused when I am in the weeds. Wikipedia gives a good overview in the introduction to its neoliberalism article. I found very interesting the comment that neoliberalism caused the economic crisis of 2008, which I lay solidly at the door of to Bill Clinton's White House.
Yes, Republicans were in the majority, but Clinton, Summers and Greenspan leaned heavily on Democrats to vote with them, rather than filibuster them. Clinton especially wanted, as he so often did, the cover of a so-called "veto-proof majority." He got it for Gramm Leach Blilely, aka repeal of Glass Steagal and tried for it with the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
In the CMFA, a Senate compromise left unregulated mortgage derivatives, the security that led to disaster in the US, the UK, Greece, Spain and Portugal. However, ultimately, the DMFA got wrapped into a 2000 page bill. Supposedly, Republicans were going to shut down federal government unless it passed. Shutdowns were allowed during the Obama administration and the world did not end. However, then, they were unthinkable. Anyway, here's the wiki intro (all bolding is mine):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism