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!
“Leaving aside the undoubted burden of punative US sanctions on the latter.”
Not really a fair comparison is it? One dictator funed and supported to the hilt by US/Britain and the other economically crippled by trade sanctions.
I’m no communist but Cuba hasn’t been given a chance, the US/British alliance has more blood on its hands than just in the middle east.
Poor economy is one thing, but surely the curtailment of rights is quite another?
Oh well that’s alright then.
2006 and we are still getting Mussolini train-type yarns. Hideous.
Poor economy is one thing, but surely the curtailment of rights is quite another?
And the latter surely has nothing to do with the estimated 600 assassination attempts on Castro’s life by the CIA.
Sorry but I don´t think it´s a tough one at all, Mick. There is NO excuse whatsoever for the Pinochet regime and their murder and torturing. The Nazi regime lowered unemployment levels in Germany in the 1930s but that in no way excuses anything they did.
It´s true, many on the left turn a blind eye to injustice under the Castro regime in Cuba and that is inexcusable too. Does anyone know how many have been killed under Castro though? One person would be one too many of course – I am just wondering as I have never seen any figures for deaths and torture in Cuba.
The Washington Post must be a foul neocon rag to publish this article, inmho
The comparison is certainly odious (and the economic argument is no argument at all) but it is no more odious than condemnation of Pinochet from people who happily fawn all over Castro.
I am not taking the Norman Lamont line here. But what intrigues me is the problem of unintended outcomes.
I guess another unfair aspect of the comparison is that Pinochet is a long time out of the job. Castro is still in situ. It took Spain some time to shake off the effects of its dictatorship, but once gone there is no doubt that, over a considerable period of time, it was able to recover a largely healthy democracy.
Not true, Mick.
He formally relinquished the Presidency in 1990 but remained Army C-in-C until 1998.
His continuing informal authority did not exactly create much space for civilianisation of government. I should doubt that his historical contribution will be based on economics – not as long as there is a moral compass independent of the mores of US foreign policy.
Washington Post a right wing neo con rag… some of us need to get out more.
IW. Good point on the CiC job. Although the contrived epithet of “Senator for life” did not save him from being arrested in London.
None of these issues are as simple as the editorial would at first glance make it seem. Here’s an interesting abstracted look at the economic problem faced by Cuba. Though if you scroll down, the writer seems constrained in recounting the nature of current human rights issues there.
Without allowing myself to get pushed into a position of underwriting the long term recovery of Chile (Argentina was once lauded as an economic miracle, and has spent the last decade wandering an economic desert), the economic question is not as entirely irrelevant as some here seem to think.
“He may have been a son of a bitch, but he sure was our son of a bitch”
This echo’s around the Washington Beltway !!
Mick
Don’t forget that Castro went to Washington after the revolution seeking friendship and cooperation.
He was kept waiting in an anteroom at the State Department for hours, then a junior official came out and told him to take a hike.
That’s when he went home and called the Kremlin.
You simply can’t say that one dictator’s human rights violations are somehow less odious than another’s.
Ho Chi Minn had the same problem.
After helping the Allies during WWII, Ho Chi Minn went to Trueman and asked for help, Dien Bien Phu later, Ho Chi Minn gets on the horn to the Kremlin.
Ho Chi Minn was a nationalist and would have become a true capitalist, if that meant Vietnam was granted Independence.
PInochet was the lesser of two evils will I believe be the judgement of history .
Nobody knows how many Cubans have been executed under Castro’s regime. The hundreds of thousands of Cubans who have fled the Cuban regime since Castro took power had a reason for leaving .
I tend to agree with Art Hostage & Joe Canuck re the record of the USA foreign relations crowd re Vietnam & Cuba . How to turn victory into defeat seems or to create a bigger mess than the one you wanted to fix seems to be the American way at least in the field of foreign policy .
Mick
I found the article the usual Wall St promo crap, but it was your post which really disappointed me, not least because you ignored the fact that the main beneficiaries of the Chilean economy, even today, are the middle classes who where Pinochet core support base, [do you come from that class Mick?] and that over a third of the Chilean people still live below the poverty line, but hey, as long as the shops have ipods etc for sale.
Not only was Pinochet responsible for mass murder, but what you seem to be overlooking he all but destroyed the system of health care, state funded education and good employment practices for the Chilean working classes and peasantry that the Allende government was instigating. Plus he sold off the natural resource of the Chilean people and their State assets at knock down prices to US multi Nationals. You also seem to have overlooked the Chicago bunch of economist the US government sent down there to oversee this theft; and thus reduce the working classes to serfdom, whilst they stuffed cash into the pockets of the wealthy in chile and back home. Now one would have to be pretty dumb not to to kick start an economy under such circumstance, especially with the blank cheque the US and world bank gave the obscene brute. The more so when the purpose of that economy under Pinochet was to serve only one section of the Chilian people.
However when the USA placed Pinochet in power they set something else in motion which had disastrous consequences around the world, some of which we are still experiencing today. For the Allende government was the first marxist/socialist government to be elected by a democratic mandate. Hence it posed a real danger to greedy capitalists and their gofers the word over. For if workers and their allies in the middle classes could elect governments that put their, and the nation as a whole’s interest first; and if they could manage to stay in power without being overthrown by the forces of reaction. There would be no need for violent revolution like that which brought Lenin and Castro to power.
Hence with Pinochet rise to power, almost its first effect was that Mr Castro battened down the hatches, called out his security service etc, whilst Pinochet main financiers the CIA turned the economic screw on Cuba, as Castro was not prepared to liberalize and risk going the same way as his friend Allende, who had incidentally been pressing on him the merits of the democratic way just prior to being overthrown.
Please do not compare the Chilean economy with Spain as it is simply not comparable, not least as shortly after the fall/death of Franco, a socialist government was elected, who introduced the welfare state, legalized TU’s etc. Plus Spain had a very helpful EU to edge it towards a social democratic society, whereas when Pinochet left office the US all but demanded he remain in control of the military to police the nation and enforce the will of its most reactionary forces.
Mick, unlike you it seems, I believe the sign of a successful economy is one which puts the needs of those at the bottom of the economic pile first and by so doing brings more equality not less. A successful economy is one that looks after the most vulnerable people within the nation, not adds to their misery.
Thus in my judgement not only is Chile a failed economy, but so to in many ways is the UK and RoI. It seems to me you have brought into the whole exploitative neo-con nonsense that it is impossible to have a decent economy and a social democratic society. I hope I am mistaken in this.
That’s my reading of the Vietnam situation too, Art Hostage, based on a couple of history books I read.
Immediately after the Japanese surrender, the USA rearmed the Japanese occupying forces as auxiliaries to hold down the Vietnamese until the French could scurry back.
Relying on the Washington Post for a fair assessment of the value of deregulation, privatization, union busting and Thatcherism run amok (i.e. the so-called “Miracle in Chile”) is akin to using the Telegraph for balanced insights into Republicanism.
Aside from a few ideologues, most informed assessments of Pinochet’s (read Milton Friedman’s) economic experiments in Chile conclude that it was a unmitigated disaster. For starters, in real terms, unemployment rose nearly 500%, real wages declined by 40%, and the poverty rate doubled from 20 to 40% of the population.
In fact, in 1983 Pinochet, having bankrupted the country and created a depression, was forced to reverse himself and started nationalizing segments of the society he had previously let go for a pittance.
It is, in fact, that the socialist government of Allende — which Pinochet and the American government violently overthrew — had nationalised the Chilean copper industry (something Pinochet didn’t get around to selling to his friends) that accounts for most of Chile’s economic well being today. This point is always conveniently left out when the Right discusses the bogus miracle in Chile.
For anyone interested, here’s a link to a more balanced assessment of Pinochet’s economic experiments on Chile
Tinker Bell and Pinochet
Mick Hall,
thank you for eloquently and cogently rebutting the Washington Times piece.
In 1979 when Somoza fled from Nicaragua with what remained of the country’s wealth both the World Bank and IMF declared that the Nicaraguan economy was unavoidably heading for total economic meltdown.
Under the economic polices of the Sandinistas not only did this unavoidable economic catastrophe not occur but every single developmental indice rose – literacy, health, standard of living, etc. All this despite US funded Contra-terrorism, the mining of harbours by the US, a US sponsored economic blockade and a devastating earthquake in Managua.
If the Washington Consensus free market enterprise solution pushed by the WB & IMF for the last 30 years is such a panacea why didn’t Argentina, Brazil, Peru or Russia benefit from it?
The abhorrent moral decree of the WT piece that creating a successful (for the wealthy) economy expunges murder, torture, dictatorship, loss of civil & human rights seems only to apply to allies of the US. That the Cuban economy has been more successful than it’s counterparts in Latin and Central America, despite a 50 year economic blockade with the US, would surely argue that Castro has been the lesser of two evils? Of course given the choice between a Cuban Pinochet and Castro, Castro would be the lesser of two evils.
joeCanuck: “Immediately after the Japanese surrender, the USA rearmed the Japanese occupying forces as auxiliaries to hold down the Vietnamese until the French could scurry back. ”
My understanding is that it was theBritish and French that re-armed the Japanese, but hey, hwy let fact get in your way…
From the History place…
July 1945 – Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, World War II Allies including the U.S., Britain, and Soviet Union, hold the Potsdam Conference in Germany to plan the post-war world. Vietnam is considered a minor item on the agenda.
In order to disarm the Japanese in Vietnam, the Allies divide the country in half at the 16th parallel. Chinese Nationalists will move in and disarm the Japanese north of the parallel while the British will move in and do the same in the south
September 13, 1945 – British forces arrive in Saigon, South Vietnam.
September 22, 1945 – In South Vietnam, 1400 French soldiers released by the British from former Japanese internment camps enter Saigon and go on a deadly rampage, attacking Viet Minh and killing innocent civilians including children, aided by French civilians who joined the rampage. An estimated 20,000 French civilians live in Saigon.
September 24, 1945 – In Saigon, Viet Minh successfully organize a general strike shutting down all commerce along with electricity and water supplies. In a suburb of Saigon, members of Binh Xuyen, a Vietnamese criminal organization, massacre 150 French and Eurasian civilians, including children.
September 26, 1945 – The first American death in Vietnam occurs, during the unrest in Saigon, as OSS officer Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey is killed by Viet Minh guerrillas who mistook him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey had filed a report on the deepening crisis in Vietnam, stating his opinion that the U.S. “ought to clear out of Southeast Asia.”
October 1945 – 35,000 French soldiers under the command of World War II General Jacques Philippe Leclerc arrive in South Vietnam to restore French rule. Viet Minh immediately begin a guerrilla campaign to harass them. The French then succeed in expelling the Viet Minh from Saigon.
I wish people would stop using “but hey” in their posts. It’s condescending and snide as ***k.
nothere: “I wish people would stop using “but hey†in their posts. It’s condescending and snide as ***k. ”
Any worse than disseminating false and misleading information as “history?”
In order for there to be real progress on human rights, the left needs to get away from the concept of right-wing violations = monstrous and left-wing violations = a mere bagatelle in comparison.
Amnesty International, which could hardly be considered a mouthpiece of the State Department, records in its 2006 annual report that:
On 13 July around 20 people were detained while participating in a peaceful event in Havana. They were commemorating the “13 de Marzo†tugboat disaster of 1994, in which some 35 people were killed while attempting to flee Cuba when their boat was reportedly rammed by the Cuban authorities. Six remained in detention without charge and one was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for “peligrosidad predelictiva†defined as “a person’s special proclivity to commit offences as demonstrated by conduct that is manifestly contrary to the norms of socialist moralityâ€.
Reporters Sans Frontieres also judge Cuba the 165th best country in the world for protecting press freedom. Only Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea are judged worse.
Dread
I’m willing to stand corrected but I think you’re being too harsh on me. I was (stupid at my age) relying on my memory of those two books I read maybe 30 years ago. So the British rearmed them
The fact remains that Ho Chi Minh was a true friend of the USA when they needed him and they immediately turned their backs, not only abandoned the Vietnamese, but returned a few years later to subject them when the French went down to an embarrassing defeat.
Thankfully, The USA got its comeuppance too.
And now they’re at it again and are about to suffer another embarrassing defeat.
You could hardly make this up.
BTW
As I live in Canada, I have travelled widely in the USA and they are a wonderful people no matter where you go. I admire greatly what they have achieved as individuals and as a nation, and I’ll be ever grateful for their efforts in both theatres in WW11. Uunfortunately, however, they just don’t seem to be able to master the art of foreign relations.
joeCanuck: “The fact remains that Ho Chi Minh was a true friend of the USA when they needed him and they immediately turned their backs, not only abandoned the Vietnamese, but returned a few years later to subject them when the French went down to an embarrassing defeat. ”
Actually, there was something of a civil war inside the State Department — Asian bureau wanted to support Ho Chi Minh, whilst the European bureau thought that supporting France was the preferred solution — something about appeasing the Gallic ego or some such. In their never-ceasing brilliance, the State Department decided French “friendship” was the better of two options.
As for subsequent developments, the US was not defeated in Vietnam, they were defeated on the home-front, or, more aptly, by the home front. The Viet Cong, post Tet, were almost a non-entity for all practical purposes. things were not lost until a Democratic congress lost their nerve, voting to even prevent the sale of arms to Vietnam, leaving the South Vietnamese high and dry. Similarly, the Cambodians suffered for their faith in the United States under LBJ and a Democratic congress.
joeCanuck: “Thankfully, The USA got its comeuppance too. ”
And you wonder why the harshness of my tone… you don’t appreciate my sarcasm, I find your reflexive anti-Americanism to be distasteful. Something bad happened in Vietnam so you ASSUMED it *must* have been the United State’s fault.
joeCanuck: “And now they’re at it again and are about to suffer another embarrassing defeat.
You could hardly make this up. ”
As opposed to the UN / European / Canadian tendency to weep and whine at problems, such as Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and hope they’ll go away? I would have thought that you couldn’t make up something like the Sudan after Rwanda, but there you go.
joeCanuck: “As I live in Canada, I have travelled widely in the USA and they are a wonderful people no matter where you go. I admire greatly what they have achieved as individuals and as a nation, and I’ll be ever grateful for their efforts in both theatres in WW11. Uunfortunately, however, they just don’t seem to be able to master the art of foreign relations. ”
As opposed to, say, France, who routinely go back to Africa and kick the squittle out of swarthy folk so they can feel militarily superior to someone? Or, say, the EU, who are willing to weep crocodile tears over bad things in the world, but have to stomach for doing anything about it? Bang up job they’ve done with Iran, all but falling over themselves to appease the theocrats in Tehran.
Dread,
I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make. America hasn’t made mistakes because France, Britain, the E.U. etc have been showing moral cowardness for many years?
You can find my comments on Rwanda and Bosnia elsewhere on this site.
I well remember Tony Blair saying that there would never be another Rwanda under his watch. I guess nobody in the Foreign Office has mentioned Darfur to him.
joeCanuck: “I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make. America hasn’t made mistakes because France, Britain, the E.U. etc have been showing moral cowardness for many years? ”
Its intended as a “compare and contrast” — is it better to try and fail or not to try at all? Is there anyting morally superior sitting on one’s thumbs and whinging for someone else to do the heavy lifting.
Apparently, your idea of foreign relations success is making the odd squeek in the wilderness and not interefering, or else appeasing the noisy, threatening third-world dictator, both hallmarks of the the foreign policy masters in the EU.
joeCanuck: “You can find my comments on Rwanda and Bosnia elsewhere on this site.
I well remember Tony Blair saying that there would never be another Rwanda under his watch. I guess nobody in the Foreign Office has mentioned Darfur to him.”
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t…
Well what can I say Dread.
I think we’ve reached the end of our discussion on this.
Even though we got somewhat off topic, it has been interesting.
regards,
Joe
Before you scuttle off — what do *YOU* consider to be a competant foreign policy, now that we have eliminated American activism and European appeasement / inactivism?
I think if anyone of us here was ever in the slightest danger of ending up in a torture-chamber. I never have, hope I never will, but if I was in that situation I guess the pain induced by the electrodes attached to my body would be just as unbearable if attached to me by someone on behalf of a leftwing or a rightwing regime. And the thought that years down the line the economy would be improved because of my screams of pain wouldn´t be much comfort.
Sorry, left out part of the first sentence:
I think if anyone of us here was ever in the slightest danger of ending up in a torture-chamber, this would be a far less abstract left-right debate.
I bow my head in shame Dread.
I would love to have said the U.N. but they as a body are an utter disgrace.
Nato has proven to be useless too.
So, I don’t know. Some middle road?
No idea how we would get there.
I wouldn’t have a problem with US activism rather than European appeasement if their activism was directed towards what’s good for the world rather than their narrow self-centred interest.
I mean, a president who still is in denial about global warming lest it might adversely affect his oil backers, is a disaster staring us in the face.
Luckily, quite a few states are taking their own actions to try to stave off a possible worldwide catastrophe.
Nw I’m really straying off topic. Sorry everyone.
Mick,
I spent too many pointless nights in my twenties trying to figure out which class I was a member of. But it’s a bit like trying to figure the answer to the question of why property prices have gone through the roof in Britain and Ireland and remain relatively pedestrian in France and Germany: there’s about five or six plausible explanations you might reasonably hit upon.
As for my post, well it’s fairly clear from the focus of my commentary that human rights abuses, in both places have top billing. Check out the current AI report on Chile and compare it to the one I linked for Cuba?
I accept that the Cuban state has produced an excellent universal healthcare service second to none in South America. And that the gap separating rich and poor is much smaller in Cuba, and is widening in Chile. These may be desirable outcomes, but the sacrifice of freedom is far from trivial!
But there is no comparison on any freedom index. Pinochet is gone and a socialist woman president has considerable executive power at her disposal. Chile is 49th in the RSF index. (Ireland is joint number one, btw). Yet according to their Americas report, “Cuba (165th) remains the world’s second biggest prison for journalists, with 24 in jail, and still does not allow an independent media”.
Mick
Additionally, Cuba has been listed as one of 13 Internet Enemies of 2006 by RSF
Along with Belarus, Burma, China, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Mick and Pete,
That’s all very well but is it reasonable to have a heirarchy of human rights abuser dictators?
Is a body count of, let’s say, 2000 any less odious than a body count of 3000?
Joe
That list is arranged alphabetically. And it’s specific to those states’ attitude to the internet.
OK Pete.
I was referring to Mick’s initial post.
Shouldn’t have included you in my address.
This is an extract from the Guardian’s obituary of Pinochet:
Meanwhile, in laboratory conditions, with political parties and trade unions banned, the “Chicago Boys” set about radically remaking the heavily state-dependent economy. This was achieved through wholesale privatisation, a complete opening to the international economy, fixing the exchange rate artificially low, and pumping in foreign loans during the petro-dollar glut of the late 1970s. The result was the destruction of national industry and much of agriculture, then near-collapse in the early 1980s amid a frenzy of speculation, consumer imports and debt crisis. The state bailed out most of the country’s banking sector and unemployment rose to an official level of over 30 per cent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pinochet/Story/0,,1968952,00.html
As in the United States the favoured model of an economy is prosperity for the rich; impoverishment for the rest. Since the coming to power of the Reagan-Bush gang the US has become more unequal, but by Boiling Frog syndrome it hasn’t provoked people very much (enough). How far Chileans as a whole are better off is not easy to find out. Things are probably not as bad as during the height of the Pinochet terror, but it takes a long time rebuild social institutions, as we can see in Britain (where Blair and Brown don’t seem too bothered).
I have to say im a pinochet fan, he cracked a few head for the greater good, i would say that is pretty couragous, to know that people would run there mouths but to stick with your ideas and get the job done inspite of it, to know that the road you are going down is a hard one but still one that must be walked, true leader makeing the hard choices, what else can you ask for.
>> what else can you ask for.<<
Legality, morality? Lack of killing and torture.
joeCanuck: “I wouldn’t have a problem with US activism rather than European appeasement if their activism was directed towards what’s good for the world rather than their narrow self-centred interest. ”
The problem is is that every state should have a right to act intheir own interest from time to time.
joeCanuck: “I mean, a president who still is in denial about global warming lest it might adversely affect his oil backers, is a disaster staring us in the face. ”
comme ci, comme ca — I would be more inclined to agree if the United States, despite being a non-signatory to Kyoto, weren’t a lot closer to its treaty benchmark than a goodly chunk of the signatories. As I guy who pays the premium for wind-power, heats with gas vs oil and drives a 4 cylinder car, I prefer Bush’s sharing of Pacific Rim strategy of sharing clean coal technology over the UN’s “let’s screw America while India and China burn coal like its going out of style” plan.
As for foreign policy — not sure where to go, either… was hoping you had an idea. I agree the UN is useless. Wouldn’t mind an “Anglo-sphere” treaty or a Treaty of “real” democratic state , as opposed to the UN, where the inmates run the asylum. Ah, well… hot chocolate and sleep are good things.
Yea George Mathews and Chile is still a fecking mess…. sometimes you need to change the rules and take the reins and get shit done the old fashion way
“Washington Post a right wing neo con rag… some of us need to get out more.”
tut tut distinguished moderator.No marks for general knowledge. The Post is a Dem supporting pissweak liberal toilet paper. You’re mixing it up with the Washington Times, an excellent paper, albeit owned by the Moonies.
Old Augusto may have been a tad overenthusiastic in his governance, but he was light years better than socialist-saint Allende. While I certainly wouldn’t share a snifter with him in the Reform Club, Pinochet would be better company than Fidel ( though he wouldn’t have as good a stock of cigars)
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…
Whilst I would dispute the exact terms that you’re using, the fact that the comparison came from a doyen of the liberal media establishment should have given some people pause for thought before lamming into in the man, yet again.
I’m not sure he was getting it mixed up with the WT (and since I’ve also written for them in past, it’s unlikely I would). The commenter in question seemed not to be using any frame of reference other than that one editorial.
Lazy, shoddy, throughother, and sadly too regular amongst some of our barfly regulars..
MickHall: “A successful economy is one that looks after the most vulnerable people within the nation, not adds to their misery.
Thus in my judgement not only is Chile a failed economy, but so to in many ways is the UK and RoI. It seems to me you have brought into the whole exploitative neo-con nonsense that it is impossible to have a decent economy and a social democratic society. I hope I am mistaken in this.”
5 years ago I’d probably have agreed with you as in my pre-Slugger days I was a regular on UKLeft Network and the old Redaction board. I wouldn’t describe myself as leftist now as I think the problem with the left is that you have become fixated on equality as an end in itself rather than as a means to an end – improving the living standards of everyone. Socialists spectacularly miss that fact. Given the choice between earning the same but having income equality and earning more money even if it means greater income gaps, people will always chose the latter.
Currently I reside most of the year in Latvia a country which was the third richest country in Europe in the late 1930s but is now the poorest EU member. Why? 50 years of being a Soviet Socialist Republic didn’t really help.
Latvia illustrates my point perfectly – the gaps in income are not really that great. A waiter/shop assistant will earn 100-150 quid a month. An office worker, 200-250 and an accountant 500-600 a month with prices about 50/60% of what they are in the UK and fast rising.
So do Latvians pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on their equality? No they jump on the first RyanAir flights to the UK and Ireland.
The fact that you even describe the latter two countries as ‘failed economies’ in comparison to places like Cuba illustrates just how much the left has totally lost the plot. Pick any pensioner in any socialist or socialist affected state (ie ex Soviet bloc) and give them the option of their home countries pension or those of UK/ROI/USA and they will vote with their feet. (Pensioners in Latvia get 100 quid a month : nice to see people at the bottom looked after so well huh?)
Add to all the above the lefts petty anti-Americanism, one sidedness on the Middle East question and an overall platform which is closer to a BNP manifesto than reality and its not a cause that I’d really want to associate with frankly.
V,
The 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. Even today they largely remain economic disaster areas, and their populations highly demoralised.
Whilst it is not fair to assert that all leftist projects are similarly fixated on ‘equality as means’, there is often a determined unwillingness to contemplate the long term unintended outcomes of state policy. Perhaps it is this (as much as the behaviour of the CIA) that has led to the quashing of individual rights in Cuba.
I have really enjoyed this thread with great debating points backed up with historical references. Joe, Dread & the rest of you, thanks for making my day on Slugger!
I had to laugh at the person mistaking the “WaPo” for a right wing rag… like confusing the Guardian & The Telegraph.
Seriously you all bring up some great points especially the detailed information from not only Chile but Vietnam that I was not aware of. There are valid arguments from the left & right alike.
For a half century the global chess game between the USA & USSR involved many kicks below the table. Both sides supported horrendous regimes because they were their kid on the block. Along with Pinochet are the likes of Batista, Samoza & Marcos to name a few. The Soviets also had their puppets on a string as well as “liberation” movements springing up throughout the developing & developed world. Both sides have innocent blood on their hands & history will be the judge of them. Pinochet oversaw a murderous, torturing regime & it is to Americas shame that they were involved in its creation.
As for Castro & Cuba I am always amazed by the lefts ongoing love affair.
Yes “he stood up to the Yankee interference.” Woohoo!
Meanwhile he was interfering in Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean.
Yes there is universal health care. Sign me up Fidel – must be better than my health insurance plan…
There is not the same “poverty-gap” as the US. Thats correct! Everyone is poor & the stores half empty.
If his Island nation is the citidel of human civilzation that the left infers then why are there so many Cubans risking life & limb trying to escape. Why are the Haitians not simply sailing across the short distance to freedom in Cuba?
I have friends who have gone there to do volunteer service who were appalled by the poverty. What appalled them even more was the absolute fear of Castro’s regime that their Cuban acquaintances had.
The only good thing in Cuba is all those classic 1950′s cars. Maybe they will trade them for a Skoda when Castro & his goons finally die off. One day that nation will be free & communism will be a museum exhibit along with some of the cars.
I don’t think that day is too far away CincinnatiDave.
I have never visited Cuba but my wife and I are thinking of going to Havana in the new year.
We love cities with lots of history.
When Castro dies there will certainly be an outpouring of grief from some of the population, but when the regime collapses, there’s going to be one hell of a party.
Maybe we should hold off on our visit until then.