Gabriel Boric: A sign of The Times or a Seismic Shift In Global Politics?
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The election of a young left wing politician in Chile might be the beginnings of something special, globally.
The 11th of September is a date forever etched on the minds of the Chilean people.
Long before it meant something to three hundred million Americans, it meant quite a bit to the citizens of this great South American country.
Why?
This was the very day in 1973 that the CIA backed Augusto Pinochet in launching a coup with overthrew the democratically elected Salvador Allende. This single action proved what most of us have always thought about the United States of America: The world’s greatest sponsor of state terrorism and coups.
Augusto Pinochet, in his time as dictator, proved to be every bit as brutal, autocratic and murderous as tens of thousands of people were interned and countless others were never seen again.
What made his regime of such strategic importance to America was his implementation of the laissez-faire ideas of the Chicago school. The success of trickle-down economics in a right wing dictatorship was what gave the likes of Friedman and Hayek the boldness to proclaim the efficacy of Neoliberalism and millions around the world have been paying the price, ever since.
Even after Pinochet departed the global stage and sought refuge in London in the late 90s, Chile was still a country deeply traumatized by years of military rule.
You could argue with a great deal of credibility that Latin America has suffered a great deal from America’s overbearing presence in its political and economic life.
Argentina, which had an economy to rival the United States of America in the 19th century unraveled in the most extraordinary way in the twentieth century. The great retail establishment, Harrods, was present in only two countries: Britain and Argentina. And yet, these strides gave way to dictatorships and poor leadership, from which, it has never recovered.
Brazil, once the jewel in the crown of Portugal’s empire, fell to one dictatorship after the next, from which it only emerged in the late 1980s. Even then, It was only when the likes of Lula da Silva and Dilma…
