Which is the lesser of two evils…
This is a tough one. For many on the left the most indelible mark left by the date 9/11 is undoubtedly that date in 1973, when General Pinochet took over the reigns of government in Chile. In the years that followed, according to the Rettig Commission, approximately 3,000 people are known to have been executed, 27,000 were imprisoned and, in an unknown number of cases, tortured. And yet, as the Washington Post points out:
It’s hard not to notice, however, that the evil dictator leaves behind the most successful country in Latin America. In the past 15 years, Chile’s economy has grown at twice the regional average, and its poverty rate has been halved. It’s leaving behind the developing world, where all of its neighbors remain mired. It also has a vibrant democracy. Earlier this year it elected another socialist president, Michelle Bachelet, who suffered persecution during the Pinochet years.Like it or not, Mr. Pinochet had something to do with this success. To the dismay of every economic minister in Latin America, he introduced the free-market policies that produced the Chilean economic miracle — and that not even Allende’s socialist successors have dared reverse. He also accepted a transition to democracy, stepping down peacefully in 1990 after losing a referendum.
By way of contrast, Fidel Castro — Mr. Pinochet’s nemesis and a hero to many in Latin America and beyond — will leave behind an economically ruined and freedomless country with his approaching death. Mr. Castro also killed and exiled thousands. But even when it became obvious that his communist economic system had impoverished his country, he refused to abandon that system: He spent the last years of his rule reversing a partial liberalization. To the end he also imprisoned or persecuted anyone who suggested Cubans could benefit from freedom of speech or the right to vote.
Leaving aside the undoubted burden of punative US sanctions on the latter, the prolonged and severe curtailment of human rights in Cuba provokes questions about which regime was the more destructive of political and personal freedom within their own respective countries.
Hat tip to the Instapundit!
v,
Which leftists claim that the Cuban economy is better than the UK or RoI, not me for sure, have you been spending to much time at harrys place. We leftist being human beings make many mistakes, but at least get those we make correct.
Without meaning to be insulting, you are correct in that you are not a leftist, you seem like many ex-leftist, having become demoralized when the text book left wing politics failed to work out. You simply go with the flow of powerful forces. Today they are on the right, I am sure if they were on the left, you would flow along with them. That is no way for an intelligent individual like you to live.
Mick F wrote,
he reason that story caught my eye was that it came almost immediately after a long conversation with a friend from South Yorkshire about how badly things went for many of mining communities after Scargill and what seems in retrospect to have been a politically suicidal confrontation with the Thatcher government.”
Mick
What you are saying here is that when Thatcher came along and said she was to close 200 plus Pits, the miners should have rolled over and accepted it, instead of fighting for their jobs and their families living. That the fought and sadly lost is to there credit, as the pits would have closed anyway, but for you to blame the miners for there closure is outrageous.
20 million Russians died in WW2 and hundreds of thousand of English, Irish, Scots and Welsh people, by your criteria they should not have fought the nazis, for by doing so they are responsible for the deaths I mention.
Thatcher shut the pits and thus is responsible for the desolation of the coal mining areas. To suggest otherwise is to turn morality on its head.
However this is increasingly becoming a common occurrence in todays world, where the media and the politicians portray the victims as the villains and the perpetrators become the heros.
all the best.
Mick,
As I recall there were two schools of thought in Labour at the time. I happened to be working with a particularly bright Politics MA student in Liverpool, who predicted six months before the strike began that taking on the Conservatives in a full frontal attack could and would only end in disaster. He was serially dismissed by most of his companions at the time.
I have no idea how the Thatcher administration would have reacted if the miners had gone for a settlement rather than a strike. Certainly the lack of an open ballot, proved an easy target for them and later was the cause of seeping morale amongst the strikers.
What I do know is that the polarising effects of the strike, its sudden and absolute defeat, and the loss of jobs afterwards are still being felt to this day by those communities in South Yorkshire that supported it through thick and thin.
Take Thorne and Eddlington for instance. The former lost its pit in the mid fifties, and the latter in 1985. Thorne is not particularly prosperous, but it had time to diversify and its miners got jobs in other parts of the industry. Eddlington was snuffed out like a light. Importantly the union had no hand it scoping out how the inevitable shock could be handled or ameliorated.
Certainly you can blame Thatcher for precipitating the sudden closure, but surely you also have to question the confrontational actions of the NUM, which as a consequence of losing a single ‘big play’ barely existed afterwards to protect either jobs or communities. For many in the leadership it was simply a class war, and the workers lost!
That strike happened shortly after I emigrated.
Just out of curiosity, what eventually happened to “King” Scargill?
Mickhall: “Which leftists claim that the Cuban economy is better than the UK or RoI, not me for sure, have you been spending to much time at harrys place. We leftist being human beings make many mistakes, but at least get those we make correct.”
Mick, you may not have said that but you did say that the UK and ROI were failed economies while pointedly acting as an apologist for Castro. I also note that you conveniently ignored my point about the damage done to Latvia and many other ex-Soviet countries by socialist *practice* rather than theory. It’s seeing that – hard life experiences rather than any disillusionment that turns many away from socialism. It just doesn’t work!
So the question does stand – if the UK and ROI are ‘failed economies’ can you name one single socialist state today or within living memory that are successful economies. For me, the proof is in actions rather than words and the flood of people to capitalist first world countries and away from failed socialist models is telling.
By the way your point about Spain is dubious – 7 years elapsed between Franco’s death and the election of the first Gonzalez government and that government ended in a tidal wave of corruption and unemployment above the 20% mark, while the Aznar government left with a buoyant economy and 8% unemployment.
Until the left can unenciate workable alternatives, socialism will retain the appeal of the flat earth society and no amount of patronising babble about “people going with the flow” will ever change that.
JoeCanuck,
Arturo quit Labour in 1996 and set up his own vanity project the Socialist Labour Party which quickly burned itself out. He still stands in elections under that label but attracts derisory support. See
http://www.minersadvice.co.uk/yourview21_scargill_fantasy.htm
Thanks for that link , Valenciano.
Hubris in full flight of fantasy, I guess.
V
The thing is, inequality matters. It has already been proven that inequality can damage a society on a economic basis, without even considering the social cost and potential negative impact associated with it.
No one is suggesting complete equality of outcome. But ensuring that no one gets left too far behind and that an underclass doesn’t develop is no bad thing. We have a target for inflation, I fail to see why a target for inequality that’s not too hot, not too cold can’t be met.
Moreover, the Left and “Socialism” do not necessarily mean Cuba. It could mean the Nordic Countries, where it is working, or the rest of South America where democratically elected Left Wing governments are improving living standards by taking a cut of some of their mineral wealth.
Mick
The loss of freedoms are no trivial thing indeed. But Cuba supports excellent numbers on almost all quality of life measures; certainly more than other comparable US supported countries in the region. On an intellectual level it is easy for me to say that you would trade freedom for all else. If you were living in the country however, surely that is a terrible choice?
Pinochet took power in different days. A lot was happening then: the end of the Portuguese empire, the Yanks getting their imperialist butts kicked, Arab Israeli tensions, Christy Moore, the loony left holding upo Albania, Cuba, Yugoslavia and North Krea as models to follow. Pinochet, like most fascists, was a good friend of perfidious Albion. Whoever follows Castro will sell out the same way Adams and Ortega did. Social climbers with bombs.
Mick F
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and of course not holding a ballot was a major mistake, because it allowed both the media and the Kinnockites to pour excreta on the NUM leadership throughout the strike. Many of us within the TU movement at the start of the strike argued for a ballot, but what you have to understand there was a massive build up within the NUM for a strike and many within the NUM leadership were swept along in this. Plus Scargill being a Stalinist would not listen as his own politics were not based on democratic accountability, in this he had a lot in common with Thatcher.
There really was no other option but a strike, and the longer the leadership postponed it the more coal stocks etc the government would get in. The fact was thatcher was determined to destroy the NUM and her strategy included ruining the lives of millions of people and their communities by closing the Pits down. Scargill understood this and all he said on this subject proved correct. Thatcher would only have accepted sackcloth and ashes and the miners were just not that type of people.
V
As someone who has opposed Stalinism all their political lives, I do not need you to remind be of the tragedy of the USSR, although instead of crying crocodile tears for its former citizens you might gain more respect if you were to argue against the outrageous way the new Russia has been governed and condemn the criminals who run it.
There was a great article in yesterdays Guardian by Stephen Cohen about how the Stalinist Nomenclature, low life’s like the current owner of Chelsea FC and countless other villains
stole the nations assets and made dam sure the new Russia would not be a democracy as we understand the word.
As Kensei has already said, we have the Nordic example of socialism, whilst not perfect, imo it should be the starting point which the left today should aim at, then hopefully we could move forward from there, if the people at the ballot box wish it. What you and to a degree mick f are doing is accepting that the type of society we currently life in is all human kind can hope for.
perhaps you do so because you fit reasonable comfortably within todays world, you may have a different opinion if you were at the bottom of the heap, or at the very least you made an attempt to place yourself into the shoes of those whose shoes pinch dreadfully in today’s world.
Under unregulated capitalism it is not possible to live well without others feeling the lash, that is how the system works, this does not have to be so, even under the capitalist system. By your acceptance of today’s world, you are supporting the fact that most of the world population live in poverty and ignorance and appox one third of the nation you live in exists below the poverty line.
if you are comfortable with that fact fine, but if not, well do I really have to quote Bobby Sands at you?
Happy christmas.
Mick,
While I never thought I would find myself defending Arthur Scargill (except during the miners’strike when solidarity demanded it). He was hardly responsible for the impoverishment of South Yorkshire and other former mining areas.
I temped at the Morning Star during the strike and while privately Scargill was considered a pompous, vainglorious disaster being led by the nose into a trap of his own making, it was important to stick together against the common enemy. Mick McGahey the Scottish leader was a towering and inspiring figure hide bound by Scargill’s foolishness. Scargill had been advised not to call the strike until coal stocks had run low. Scargill had been advised to call a ballot which would have been won easily thus confirming the strike’s union wide mandate and heading off the threat that the breakaway, boss-funded UDM later became but he would not listen. Despite the heroic resistance and huge public support Scargill’s tactics lost the strike.
But that does not make him guilty of closing down the mines or of the planned industrial decay set in place by Thatcher and her backers. That would be like blaming a rape victim because she wore too much make-up and dressed in too short skirts. The credit for laying waste to the industrial north of England and Wales and Scotland and condemning all those generations to continued unemployment must instead lie, if in any one individual, with his arch-nemesis, Thatcher.
And on the Castro/Pinochet question it is simple for me really – Castro and his small band set sail for Cuba on the Granma prepared to sacrifice and die in order to bring freedom from want for the downtrodden masses of their beautiful country. Pinochet ordered his troops to bring down the elected government of his country in order to sacrifice the downtrodden masses and increase their state of want for the material benefit of himself and his friends. The Pinochet apologia proffered by the Washington Post reeks of the type of thinking behind the statement of the US commander in Vietnam who (in)famously said after a bloody destruction, “We destroyed the village in order to save it”.
Rory,
Well said.
Rory: “I temped at the Morning Star during the strike and while privately Scargill was considered a pompous, vainglorious disaster being led by the nose into a trap of his own making, it was important to stick together against the common enemy. ”
If you follow the lead of a man you know isn;t going anywhere, you have little standing to complain if you get lost…
Rory: “But that does not make him guilty of closing down the mines or of the planned industrial decay set in place by Thatcher and her backers. That would be like blaming a rape victim because she wore too much make-up and dressed in too short skirts.”
No, it would be like blaming a robbery victim for getting drunk and walking down dark alleys with 5 pound notes hanging out of his pockets. As you said, he walked into a trap of his own making. You have already conceded he greatly contributed to his (and the union’s) downfall.
Rory: “Castro and his small band set sail for Cuba on the Granma prepared to sacrifice and die in order to bring freedom from want for the downtrodden masses of their beautiful country. ”
So, your thesis runs that if your initial intentions are pure, you are absolved of all subsequent crimes and abuses, no matter how badly matter get cocked-up?? Interesting set of ethics you’re playing with there, Rory…
“Well Darth, it’s the first time those two words have been used together on this site for quite some time, if ever. Thank goodness for good old fashioned Presbyterian civility.
You may also wish to note that I was admonishing another poster for suggesting that the WaPo was “a right wing neo con rag  And that he should get out more… ”
All hail mick. Faster than Richard Dunn in the six yard box. Braver than that greek bloke City thought was a centre forward but turned out to be a male model. More diplomatic than Joey Barton at Goodison.Quicker to strike back than Ben Thatcher And indupitably better at defending than the City back 4 at the theatre of the damned on Saturday past. Er.. that’s all, no more digs at City’s tragic defeat
Dread posted,
No, it would be like blaming a robbery victim for getting drunk and walking down dark alleys with 5 pound notes hanging out of his pockets.”
Nonsense, in fact the miners did the opposite, rather than accepting their fate and and bending the knee to Thatchers totally unnecessary pit closures, which incidentally have probably cost the UK far more than if the pits had remained opened. [ MickF is correct about the desolation the closures caused. but the miners new this, that is why they felt they had no alternative but to Strike]
They fought against the closures as best they could in the hope that the Labour Party and TUC leadership and those within the Tories who opposed this policy would find some backbone and help put a stop to the closures. That these spineless gits crawled under a rock for much of the strike and only came out condemning Scargill when they realized the strike was lost tells all.
Thatcher used every thing within the UK state arsenal to defeat what was an industrial despite which according to that woman herself had nothing to do with the government. Scargill and the NUM were up against the media, the TU bureaucrats, LP leaders, the police, army and intelligence services, who had planted with in the NUM a large number of agents and informers.[thats how far in advance these closures were planned. thus in truth they did not do to bad, now did them.
I find it very revealing that many of the same people who condemn those working class nationalist who joined the IRA in the 1970s to defend the homes etc, today are badmouthing Scargill. All I can say is thank christ none of you lot were about in 1939-40, for you may well have joined those Tories, business people and aristos who wanted to hatch a deal with Hitler so as not to lose their property etc.
What not one of you who have condemned Scargil have done, is offered an alternative to striking, not unreasonable, because there was not one. In my eyes when decent people are put in such a position as the miners were in 84, you stand alongside them, and you certainly do not start throwing brickbats at them years latter because the failed to win their strike.
Mickhall,
I had already emigrated when the strike began so i can’t give any reasonable comment on the issue (Canadian newspapers are somewhat parochial).
I had and still have (to a lesser extent) left wing sympathies.
But aside from brickbats, I seem to recall actual bricks being thrown from a motorway overpass resulting in death.
joe,
Sadly this did happen and a man lost his life if my memory is correct, which was crass stupidity and wrong on the part of those who carried out this act. There were also deaths and injury on the picket line, striking miners died. [not murdered thankfully] For anyone who did not visit the mining communities during the Strike it is difficult to describe the intensity of feelings and solidarity the community showed to one any another.
Mick Fealty in his post and i am in no way implying he did this for malicious reasons because he is not that type of man, mentioned the desolation in many of the mining areas up until this day due to they pit closures, however he failed to mention back in 1984 the majority of the miners understood only to well what would happen to them and their communities if they lost the strike and the pits close.
Mineworkers since nationalization had through solidarity gained via their unions good wages and working conditions, not only did they understand that these wages and conditions were unlikely to be replicated in other industries, but also, due to the geographical position of many of the mining communities, once the Pits closed there would be no industry within their areas that could take up the slack.Thus it would not only be their jobs going, but also that of future generations. Micks posts have proved these worries true.
Thus the miners fought ferociously to save their livelihoods and acts like that which was mentioned occurred.
I could go on Joe, but i fear my pen would get away from me with anger. I would just add this, many of the communities Mick mentioned are full of Heroin today, whereas imo this would not have happened to the same extent if the pits had not closed and there was still good payed work for the young lads and a solid community to help those who fell victim to that narcotic.
May that woman rot in hell.
MickHall,
That’s a bit better and thank you for the clarification. For my part I’m no anarcho-capitalist either. What I would say is that defining the Nordic states as Socialist in any way is patent nonsense – they’re free market capitalist states with a human edge and where we would agree is that that is the best model to follow however it’s very far removed from what socialism is about.
Emotive talk about the poverty line illustrates my point. It’s all a relative thing. The average working class person in the UK lives a lifestyle that middle class people in Socialist or Socialist affected societies can only dream of. My brother who’s been fiddling the sick for some time lives a much better lifestyle than many office workers I know in Latvia.
As for Latvia/Russia – you’ll certainly not hear me defending *any* Russian leader unlike certain leftist polemicists I could name. It is also highly ironic that you condemn Russian leaders, most of whom got where they are today as a result of the misrule and misdeeds of socialism!! I also have a very valid interest in the wellbeing of Latvia’s citizens – I do have my business there and live there with a local after all!
I doubt that either me or MickF would defend the status quo but where we would difer is how to improve the lot of those at the bottom and the record of left wing states on that issue is really unenviable compared to those following a capitalist model. Left wing states have generally retarded living standards, suppressed human freedom and engaged in genocide and mass murder. Apologists for that cause are always happy to say that that wasn’t what socialism was about but most of the states which have tried that route have ended up that way. You say that you want to make a start with the (Capitalist) Nordic model. Well that’s great, but until you and the rest of the left can elaborate on that and produce workable ideas rather than well meaning but utterly pointless platitudes your influence on the political scene is likely to be mediocre to non-existent.
Hope you have a great Christmas as well by the way…
mickhall: “Nonsense, in fact the miners did the opposite, rather than accepting their fate and and bending the knee to Thatchers totally unnecessary pit closures, which incidentally have probably cost the UK far more than if the pits had remained opened.”
Do you have any real basis for this, beyond wishful thinking?
As for my point, the miners and Scargill made the job that much easier, just like the drunk in my metaphor, by going about things in a foolish fashion. You admit as much by pointing out that NUM’s errors made it easier for Thatcher and company to achieve their goals.
mickhall: “They fought against the closures as best they could in the hope that the Labour Party and TUC leadership and those within the Tories who opposed this policy would find some backbone and help put a stop to the closures. That these spineless gits crawled under a rock for much of the strike and only came out condemning Scargill when they realized the strike was lost tells all. ”
That was their plan?? Cross their fingers and hope for the politicians to grow a spine? Politicians, particularly those in weak positions, do not grow spines. They sit on the fence and wait for the opportunity to bayonet the loser’s dead. Scargill submarined the effort out of the blocks, why risk what little capital they had on a doomed effort?
mickhall: “What not one of you who have condemned Scargil have done, is offered an alternative to striking, not unreasonable, because there was not one. In my eyes when decent people are put in such a position as the miners were in 84, you stand alongside them, and you certainly do not start throwing brickbats at them years latter because the failed to win their strike. ”
Except, of course, they were the sort to throw bricks from overpasses. You can’t help those who don’t have the mother-wit to make their best case, mickhall. Scargill poisoned the well from the first, creating a scenario that undermined his own cause. The killing of the driver was not the first nail in the coffin, but the lack of discipline and self-interest that allowed such a callous and wrong-headed act to occur was probably worth several nails.
mickhall: “I find it very revealing that many of the same people who condemn those working class nationalist who joined the IRA in the 1970s to defend the homes etc, today are badmouthing Scargill. All I can say is thank christ none of you lot were about in 1939-40, for you may well have joined those Tories, business people and aristos who wanted to hatch a deal with Hitler so as not to lose their property etc. ”
As opposed to the trade unionists and communists who were disinterested in Nazi agression until after the Austrian paper-hanger invaded Russia?