Slashdot Mirror
Cybersyn And Early Uniminds
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian Website is running a story on Cybersyn. An experimental computer network based on cybernetic principles that was used by Chile's revolutionary government between 1971 and 1973 to provide a real-time, decentralized form of economic analysis in the nationalized sector of the Chilean economy. The network has been described as Chile's Internet. There is a photo of the control room which looks something like the deck of the Starship Enterprise.
The whole thing was the brainchild of Stafford Beer, a sort of British Buckminster Fuller. All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973."
I bet "Cybernetic Principles" sounded really groovy in 1971, although I'm curious how you can build a computer network, or a computer-anything for that matter, without them.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
First thought it was about pr0n or Kazaa (or using blink tags), but no.
Voters, workplaces and the government were to be linked together by a new, interactive national communications network, which would transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - a sort of socialist internet, decades ahead of its time.
Uhhh, no, that's nothing like the Internet, actually. The Internet links men with chicks, to transform their relationship into something profoundly more equal and responsive than before - the guys shell out money and get pr0n. Nothing socialist about it, and certainly nothing to do with voters.
What's your damage, Heather?
That doesn't look like the deck of the Enterprise. Just seven captain's chairs, and nothing else. And that would suck. One Captain Kirk, given Shatner's overacting, annoying enough. Seven of them would just plain suck.
Remember, you're only a war criminal if you're on the losing end of the war. This is why Saddam will be tried as a war criminal if we ever capture him, as he should, but Bush won't.
How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?
34
"Computadora, te, gris del earl, caliente."
Trolling is a art,
At last! A /. article on my pet subject!
The system contains strict limits on what information is passed upwards - this is how it was able to function on 1970s computer hardware over 1970s WANs. The absence of totalitarian control is a crucial design factor. There just isn't the bandwidth, nor would you want it.
Beer is the most freedom-loving person you could hope to imagine. He designed Cybersyn to enhance freedom, not to crush it. He sadly died last year.
For a full account of this system, read Beer's book "Brain of the Firm".
Uh, so how many Chileans did he order killed? I keep forgetting.
Le Duc Tho, Now there's a person who fits the bill as a war criminal. Aided in the waging of war against a neighboring nation, allowed torture, rape, wrongful imprisonment, terrorism, slavery, mistreatment of POWs...
Just for a grin, I searched google.
Looking there, you can find beer.
Looking there, you can find Stafford
eg It's in the UK The United Kingdom is well known for its relationship to beer.
Oddly enough, searching for both Stafford and beer returns no links about the proliferation of fermented ales in a certain part of the United Kingdom.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
So much for the "extra something" we lefties can bring...
I could well be wrong, but the "he" that you are referring to (Pinochet??) came to power in 1973.
He wasn't in power from 71 to 73.
Mark.
Actually it sounds more like modern "enterprise software". But I guess because a far-left government was doing it we have to assume it's evil.
I hear he has to consult his lawyers these days before he travels.
Wouldn't want to be tried before the International Criminal Court now, would he?
I think you misread the articles and as an american, you do not know history. After 1973, with the help of the US government, there was military right wing coup d'etat to overthrow the current elected government. Then torture started. Thank you USA.
Yeah, but, well, it didn't work. What they got was a real-time view of a country going down the drain.
I propose tagging the network RTDTDA.NET (Real-Time Down The Drain Analytic Network)
Hold on just a minute there.
There was nothing revolutionary about the Chilean government in the years 1971-1973 other than that they were voted in by the first democratic process the country had ever seen.
This is in contrast to the Pinochet government installed by the CIA in response to this unauthorized installation of democracy, whose crimes are well known.
Its not just the whole winning the war thing that prevents him from being prosecuted. The International Criminal Court (ICC) which was setup to try war crimes was opposed vehemently by the United States and it got to the point that the US refused to take part in any peace-keeping forces globally unless the US was exempt from the actions of the ICC. Just the other day in fact they blocked the adoption of a UN resolution to boost protection for aid-workers in conflict zones because the bill proposed that killing an aid worker would be considered a war crime in accordance with the Rome Statute of the ICC. They basically refuse to have any US military or political leader, past or present, held accountable for any of their actions in the global sphere. It must be a weight of your mind though, when considering whether to invade a country completely unprovoked...
I wont post links. Google for '"War crimes" USA ICC' and you'll find more than enough reputable links to support everything I've said.
The USA also authorised the coupists to kill US citizens for being in the way...
Looks like it was the control room for Preparation G.
from the site
The photo to the left depicts the Cybersyn opsroom
depicts is a lot different from is, its more of a "we reckon it looked like this"
Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.
Uh, no, you are thinking of Pinoche, the US sponsored right-wing scum who deposed him. Didn't you know that? Then shut the hell up.
Why shouldn't it be mentioned? Or are you saying that if someone mentions that "Yes, US has overthrown democratically-elected leaders and put brutal dictators in their place", it just shows that those people are "anti-american"? I mean, they are merely stating a fact? Do we have to glorify USA all the time, and if we fail to do so, we are "anti-american"?
I for one find the whole deal in Chile a perfect example of american hypocrisy. Democratically elected leaders are OK only as long as they agree with USA. If they don't, they are bad and must be got rid of. That puts the whole "US's crusade against tyranny and dictators" in to a whole new perspective wouldn't you say?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I can't say why but I kept reading that as SEELE.
/massive, ultra-nerdy reference
"...an experimental computer network based on cybernetic principles..."
Sounds like something Arnold Schwarzenegger would say.
"I'm a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer."
Hmph. At the risk of sounding like a leftie:
All very Orwellian and Big Brother, the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973.
Why is this "Orwellian and Big Brother[ish]"? You seem to forget that the "CIA sponsored coup" was actually a pretty bloody affair itself... More than 3000 people "disappeared" (tortured and fed to the fishes), some because they were just suspected of left-of-center sypathies.
But don't take my word for it, read the following:
Amnesty International 1, Amnesty International 2, Amnesty International 3, Human Rights Watch, and even this week's Economist, etc... I could go on, but you get my drift.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I believe this is the most likely reason for the choice in timing of the terrorist attacks on New York.
Only state secrecy and state funding could produce something like that (or an evil mastermind).
So what if the killing was an accident? Sounds more like the ICC is playing fast and loose with the definition of a 'war crime' to suit political ambitions. If other countries were smart, they wouldn't sign on to it either.
You never know, perhaps one day the human race will grow up.
Poor Chile, you might have made it but you're brave attempt has not gone unrecalled, we have a stable system in place now, and we shall not be brooked. The internet is barely yet in its teens and has yet to flex its muscles, but by the shear multitude of its numbers will prevail. I'm not talking about virus writers or spammers or pornographers. I'm talking about ordinary, kind, honest and clever people who are also net savvy.
I thank who ever sent this in, you have fueled my hope.
No, I don't think so either. Most sane people would think that giving a business the information it needs to stay in business is a good thing. And if you actually RTFA, you will see it describes how the system was able to keep the Chilean economy functioning during a national strike. It made the economy more resilient. Isn't that what software is supposed to do?
I feel a major rant coming on, but it's off-topic.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It's worse than that. Allende had no particular disagreement with the USA. He just happened to be a socialist, is all. New Scientist apparently ran a story which stated that what Beer was trying to achieve was impossible, and the article here implies that anything like this "must be" Orwellian in nature, so you can see where the CIA got its extra ammunition from.
If its an accident, the evidence will support that and the charge will be dropped. Would you like to have the Police in the US automatically exempt from trial for any of their acts? Given the evidence over the past few years, I don't think anyone could say yes to that. Now thats kind of how the rest of the world feels when the US decides it is automatically exempt from the reach of the ICC. Let the evidence decide the matter.
So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.
So.. could someone please explain to me why the USA is now best-friends with Pakistan?
Musharraf ousted an elected civilian regime and replaced it with a military dictatorship.
This was harshly criticized by the international community, including the USA.
Come 9/11 and we're suddenly best friends?
This entire "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and
"ends-justify-the-means" mentality is exactly the same reasoning that
caused the USA to back Pinochet in Chile.
...Stafford Beer. Aaaaaaaaaggghh...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
It's fascinating to look at these early efforts at controlled economies and think how much better the US economy could be with a bit of technological innovation. And by innovation I don't mean another few decades of intense patent litigation.
The lack of a national electronic currency is a glaring absence. You can hardly expect e-retailing to compete with cash when e-currency consists of credit cards issued by usurous, predatory corporate behemouths. But a conservative government has no reason to disturb the status quo of all things. A national e-currency would disrupt the existing financial industry to no end and that potential negative is much more important to a conservative government than the possible positive of helping the economy as a whole. Why trade what works for some today for what might work for many tomorrow.
So, I understand that it's a political impossibility today, but when the government finally does awake to its responsibility to create a usable currency as it is laid out in the Consitituion, the possibilities are great. It could make a viable welfare state a reality.
The currency could be manipulated in ways previously unheard of. People could be paid simply to live their lives and still there would be no need for inflation. Businessnes could prosper at the same time. It wouldn't have to be anti-business at all. America could never thrive without business, but it wouldn't have to. A planned economy and a thriving business world could easily exist side by side.
I realize these ideas are still quite blasphemous, but should we reach a point of crisis trodding the well worn path, it's nice to know that there are alternatives that could be introduced before things got too bad.
"Sir! Employment dip approaching 132 mark 7!"
"On...screen! What...could it...Sensors?"
"Sir, it appears to be a second-class hiring anomaly. They are pointing fingers, I suggest evasive action. Our treasury is not capable of withstanding a direct attack."
"Understood. It appears that...we can...not win this...one. Change our course to...braised shrimp and roast duck. Maximum warp!"
...
-kgj
to hear about the 'cybernetic' computer system that helps the rebel side of a revolution. Of course, it'll have to be named Mike.
TANSTAAFL!
How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?
You just don't get it do you? American logic works like this:
Americans = good, intelligent people blessed by God.
Foreigners = generally bad, often evil, always ignorant, incompetent, infidels, weasels, jealous of Americans.
So using American logic we can see that:
Cybersyn was foreign and therefore evil and Orwellian.
The CIA sponsored coup was American, and therefore good. Of course the ends justify the means sometimes.
You are criticising Americans therefore I assume that you are an ignorant, evil and probably jealous.
If you want to know about the chilean guy who was behind this, and what he is up to now, check this article.
For those of you already complaining about how a bloody coup thwarted this clearly great idea, please read that article. It is very politically biased, but it shows how this guys ideas have evolved over time, and I would dare to say he wouldn't think of building such a clearly useless system now.
A system like that cannot take individual human actions into account, it cannot deal with subjective market decisions, it cannot handle human relations. A professor at Universidad de Chile (the one the submitter mentions) told us about this system years ago, and how it seemed to be such a great idea for managing coal production (for example)... until it had to deal with a coal miners strike...
If you want to know why such a centralized system will never be useful check econlib, you might learn a thing ot two.
By the way, I'm chilean.
Allende was democratically elected, in an election far less suspitious than what happened in Florida.
There was an U.S. sponsored coup after, and then the most brutal regimem of the 20th century in americas took power.
Well, anyone the US shoot is a godless heathen and deserves to die anyway.
So, Al Gore worked for Chile's revolutionary government in the early 70s?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Had I been born a few decades earlier than I was, I would like to think I'd have seen American actions in certain countries as fairly evil... after all, they were.
These days, however, American foriegn policy is more along the lines of "destroy any dangerous enemy" than "hey, we have political differences with those guys, let's replace their government with a puppet dictator".
Personally, I've nothing against the idea of pre-emptive self defense...
Britain is a fairly populous and rich country that has NO neighbours at all. At the time of the empire all propoganda was internal. The Irish were not to be trusted. A highly "internalised" country if ever there was one.
Now our media comes from 2 places. Ourselves and the US! Great! That's a healthy balanced view of the world.....
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
And then there's that whole CIA-Crack thing that no one ever did anything about. If they are on a leash, someone forgot to tie off the other end of it.
You should remmeber that the whole ideology from the 50th up until recently was governed to a large part by the so called "dommino effect" if you had commuists in one country then you would get the same in the neighbouring ones as well. This might explain some of the wars, but I believe that since (including) the Vietnam war this has almost never been the primary issue although on of the primary reasons given (hidden in very eloquence argumentations).
Your assumption is wrong, that the American people ignored the actions of the CIA. Many people in the US objected to the CIA sponsored coups. The events in Chile along other CIA sponsored coups were the primary reason that the American people forced the government to put the CIA on a leash. So did the American people recognize that something wrong was being committed in their names? Yes. Did they act to stop it? Yes.
There were hearings, the Republican administration withheld information from the Congress that showed how personally involved Nixon was in the murders. The sickness of the CIA was obvious enough that it was still put on a leash, but it continued to exist. Fast forward to today...
Condaliza welcomes the CIA's new dictators in Venezuela hours after the coup. Democratically elected leader was lucky enough to be forewarned due to one Constitution loving patriot in the US government who leaked the sad plot days earlier. The military regiment he left in the basement of the presidential palace arrests the Venezuelan 'leaders' of the coup. Bush team lucky enough that some New Yorkers are killed, providing enough confusion that a majority of American's still don't realize the other oil rich country we decided to implement regime change in was Al Qaeda biggest enemy. America supports the dictator of Pakistan, Al Qaeda's biggest friend, rinse, repeat.
It is such a strange thing that as citizens we overwhelmingly want democracy to spread but so many of us vote for a neo-con puppet, the same people who write about establishing a Pax Americana and consolitating power with pretty lies. Anyone remember "Iraq will be a cakewalk", want to compare today's, "We knew Iraq would not be easy"...
Things are not helped by crappy papers like the NYT, whose international pages seem to be about as accurate as the "Voice of America" propaganda machine. Remember the protest in Venezuela? They showed a picture and story about the anti-government protest, but said nothing of the pro-democracy rally that had many many times the number of participants. Enough to remind me of the hundreds of thousands of protestors in New York last March which were not mentioned on the nightly news in New York, but a pro-Iraq rally consisting of 20 people the next week got a 3 minute segment. But I have to assume even those who vote for the likes of the current administration do read an international paper on the internet once in a while, and so have noticed what crap we are fed by our papers and TV news outlets.
While the Bush's may have stolen the last election, I'm more ashamed that it was so easy for him to actually win support of 48% of eligible voters who showed up at the polls, than less than half a million Democrats his brother illegaly removed from the rolls and a few hundred voting machines he rigged to swallow bad ballots in black districts and to spit out for revote in conservative white districts.
Until the CIA is dissolved and amnesty is given to lesser functionaries to provide evidence against the worst criminals in the agency, I won't believe we've taken Chile to heart. If the government needs better data on what's happening in the world let them subsidise the news media to cover foreign news properly.
A lot of people seem somewhat confused about exactly what Allende was, and the nature of the regime.
It probably wasn't what you think.
"a group of Beer disciples had formed in Chile"
This just strikes me as funny.
Any relation to CyberSkin?
It's quite obvious that the majority of people on Slashdot who describe things as "Orwellian" and/or "Big Brother"-like have either not read 1984 or not really understood it. In 1984 the whole population were not spied upon by the view screens, it was only party members. The proles were kept quiet by other methods such as manufactured pop-tunes, made-up news stories, cheap beer etc etc.
Apart from the fact that 1984 was never meant to be a prediction of the future, but a combination of a satire on the world in 1948 and the BBC (at almost any time) only the part about prole control has come true, and that wasn't really that hard to predict in 1948.
No but, yeah but, no but...
what a coincidence....
Thank you.
It's disturbingly simple. I'm not going to pretend that I thought this up myself, but I've added a bit to the original idea that I saw in The Economist last year.
The idea is that with a centrally controlled electronic currency, you'd have a degree of control over the economy that nobody in the pre-digital world could begin to imagine. In that sense, it's a completely revolutionary break from earlier economic theories because in the past there was no way to anticipate its possibility and thus no way to speculate on its potentials.
So, to get to your question about how you control inflation while handing out money to the masses in a massive welfare state, it's simple: the currency automatically deflates. This novel electronic currency would have a time-to-live like an internet packet or one of PK Dick's mutants. This type of system would simply have been to complex to imagine in the past, but now that's no longer necessarily the case.
The beauty of such a system is that it forces circulation. If you don't circulate, you lose it. That basically eliminates speculation which, along with inflation, is another historical source of troubles for welfare states.
Now, in the original article in which I saw this idea, they speculated that such a system could only come into place with the total destruction of the existing economy. That's where I took off in a different direction.
Thinking about it for awhile, I wondered if this same idea couldn't become both the basis of a vast welfare state and, at the same time, an enormous business stimulus.
Rather than waiting for the existing economy to collapse, these welfare credits could be introduced in parallel and only businesses would be allowed to exchange them into hard currency, thus leaving the existing business infrastructure intact. Businesses could still use hard currency and anybody could get into business. But the welfare recipients would have to be satisfied with their deflating currency. The only thing it would be good for it propping up businesses. Businesses that tried to cheat the system by providing exchange services would simply be restricted from accepting credits. So, the punishment system is simply to withdraw the reward.
If anything, you'd think this system would provide an enormous incentive for people to get into business and businesses would become more efficient and productive than ever. At the same time business standards rose, the vast majority of the people who couldn't make it in this ultra competitive enviroment would still be cared for.
It's pro-business socialism. People are so used to thinking either or, but I'm not sure it has to be that way. Perhaps we're struggling too hard when the answers are quite simple.
This is not even to get into the idea that a lot of America's woes are really about over production and over consumption to the detriment of living standards which are problems that might potentially be addressed more reasonably in a welfare state than in the system we're using now.
Yup, and the same applies to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. He was also democratically elected, and whatever one might think about his political action, nobody but the Venezuelan people has a right to overthrow him. That's not what the CIA bigwigs tend to think, though...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Whenever I hear about Kissinger these days, it reminds me of this (page seventeen, Get Your War On by David Rees).
the whole experiment was brought to an end by the CIA sponsored coup d'etat on the September 11th, 1973
and John Poindexter's been trying to find a new use for those computers ever since.
Over 15 years, 3000 people were killed, but this was remarkably humane compared to the communist revolutions at the time. Around the same time in Cambodia, 3,000,000 people (That's 1000 times more people) were executed by a fanatical communist regieme. In the aftermath of Vietnam there were 10s of thousands killed in political executions.
Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power. Up to that point it was assumed that the world would soon be 100% communist because slowly but surely every country was turning communist and no country had ever gone back.
Today in Chile many people marvel at the non-Chilean's media's obsession with the Allende Coup. Today Chile has the best economy in Latin America, and the least corrupt, most well run government in the region that actually does a great job at promoting things like public health.
I was there during the 2000 election between Lagos and Lavin and if you read the Chilean or Argentinan press you saw story after story about Lagos and Lavin's varying postitions on the economy, education, etc. If you read the international press the whole thing was Pinochet vs Allende , Pinochet vs Allende. It's as if you were reading about the 2000 U.S election in some newspaper and they were framing the whole thing as an election where the primary issue was the Vietnam War.
The chilean people should worship the ground Kissinger walks on. If it wasn't for the coup, then Chile would be another starving Cuba, not the most stable and prosperous democracy in latin america. Allende was going to pull the same shit Chavez is pulling now.
Hasn't anyone thought of making an open source project out of this?
I mean we could make two projects:
1. One that would allow for factories, etc. to communicate about needs, shortages, etc. in real time so that everyone involved in production can see what is going on and let the workers make democratic decision on how production is supposed to be shaped.
2. And one that would allow everyone to securely cast their vote on different issues and to promote them as well. The systen would have to be able to scale up to the size of world population, so that eventually decisions that affect the enitire world could be made by simple across-the-planet votes as well as national or reginal issues could be solved by letting the people instead of some politicians decide.
The whole thing would not really come into big-scale use before at least some part of the world overthrows its capitalist class and prevents the US or European Army to move in, but then it could help that part of the world to become a show-case-window for socialism pretty much immediatly!
If so, then why didn't the opposition arrange demonstrations, arrange strikes without massive CIA intervention and actually manage to keep the strikes going, and demand changes?
Fact is, Allende was democratically elected, and the opposition, even with CIA help, didn't manage to raise enough support in the population to get anywhere near overthrowing his government before they decided to start murdering innocent people.
If Allende was so bad for Chile, why couldn't the CIA stay out of it and let Chileans decide for themselves and throw him out of power?
And why did they support a fascist dictator if the goal was to "save" the Chilean people from suffering?
You try to justify it by pointing to Khmer Rouge, but "forget" that Khmer Rouge and Allende had wildly differing political platforms. You also conveniently "forget" that the "communist" Khmer Rouge was finally stopped not by the US, or any of it's cronies, but by "communist" Vietnam.
Allendes regime was different from either in that it didn't murder the opposition or anyone that ever looked like they might consider possibly opposing them, and was democratically elected. If you want to equate Allende and Pol Pot, I would submit that Mother Theresa was really Stalin in drag, and claim that it is just as plausible.
Try telling the hundreds of thousands of people that had close friends or relatives killed because of Pinochet that the coup was "necessary", and that you think the CIA and a small group of military officers, none elected officials, had a right to take that decision on behalf of the Chilean people.
If you truly believe that, then would you also support the removal of the US government if some small group, say Al Quaeda, decides that they think it is necessary to do so on behalf of the American people?
If not, then who do you think have the right to decide that it is "right" to overthrow a foreign democratically elected government?
This project bears some similarities to projects and concepts popular within the Soviet Union at the time, or at least shortly thereafter. I believe I have a couple of dusty books in my basement talking about the application of ASU (automated control systems) to managing a centrally controlled economy. Not sure at all about this, it has been a long time. But it might be interesting to know where the concept truly germinated. Money is essentially information. In a centrally managed economy you lose that. Massive application of IT is one attempt at solving the problem. Bold no doubt. But not so sure it is a good idea. Even today. Too bad to see the conversation devolve into the customary "anti-us vs coup was justified" agenda bashing. There is an interesting concept here. Distressing to see them consistently drowned out with the garbage agenda making of the moment.
the control room needs well endowed girls with very short miniskirts serving coffee
While they do not have the nifty captain's chair, they DO have a room where they monitor the key financial data that affects the monetary supply and exchange rates. If they move out of expected and prescribed relations, the Fed can and does take action to adjust the amount of money supply and the rates. One of the Federal Reserve Committee headed by Allen Greenspan, deliberates and set such policies. While they do not have fine control over most aspects of production in the US, what they can DO will affect economies around the world.
Thanks to cheap computing power, just about everyone can have access to the same data at reasonable prices. So many individual players will act to influence the world financial markets. A large number of these markets have balanced demand and supply, but a great many markets also lark the liquidity to 'clear'.
Although Hayek and his followers believes that such decentralized market (we might call they self-organized today) will inevitably reach an optimum solution, the problem is that there is no way to prove this mathematically given realistic assumptions (not to mention the markets which don't clear). In other words, for a nonlinear system, it's easy to get stuck at a local maximum when you optimize locally (analogous to trading on only the latest data).
This is IMHO why the US does not have a true lassez-faire economy. In addition to meeting the political and psychological needs of the population, there also a case for looking for global changes which can globally optimize the narrow goal of production.
Beer died last August. There's a nice appreciation of his life here. He was a very major figure in both Operations Research and Cybernectics.
--
Anthony Staines
-- Anthony Staines
I would like to request that you respond to the opposing viewpoint that's listed in reply to your post. I am honestly interested in seeing some resolution between these two very opposed but also reasonable sounding positions.
Thanks!
Yes, the price of American freedom, eternal torture and dictatorships.
Amazingly humane dictatorships always seem that way from the outside, try living under the rule of a murderous dictatorship, i think you will find it not to be so amazing or humane.
Using attorcties to justify smaller lesser attrocies, well we can do that forever. The Holocaust was larger than Camboida, so Cambodia wasn't a big deal, Cambodia was larger than Chile, so Chile wasn't a big deal, etc..
Don't forget nearly 2 million civilians who died during the Vietnam war, as a direct result of American policy. Since were comparing death totals and people killed per hour, that would put America right up there with Camboida. But since Camboida was smaller than the Holocaust, that's no big deal.
-ddn
You moron. People like you are so very dangerous.
If Pinochet was such a great guy, let him win the next election. If it was really such a mess, the voters would be only too happy to give Allende the boot.
Or was the CIA just speeding up the process?
(1) Remarkably inhumane, compared to the means by which Allende got himself into the presidency.
(2) Military governments have a such a great track record in economic reform; 3000 souls is really not much to pay for such expertise.
(3) In really civilized countries, they don't need to kill anyone to implement economic reforms.
>If it was really such a mess, the voters would be only too happy to give Allende the boot. Or was the CIA just speeding up the process?
Sure just like they did with Hitler in Germany or Musolini. It's quite amazing how some people assume that having a democratic majority magicly absolves from any responsibility.
> How can the americans say so lightly that cia organised a coup, and in the same breath ask why people around the world dislike them?
Trust me... it is very frustrating to see the cause-and-effect you outline. I voted, and that election was STOLEN from me in 2000. Like Watergate before, anti-democratic actions do not represent all of us: it's not the people's fault.
Unfortunately, the right-wing in the USA has made an unholy alliance with multinational corporations (-not- "American companies"), and -- taking a lesson from the Soviets -- realize that to control the public, you have to control the media.
Controlling the media is done through carrot and the stick. That's why, decades ago, conservatives complained about "Jew-controlled media". That doesn't fly today, so they changed the codewords to be "liberal biased media". It is both accusation and pressure at the same time.. the fear stick.
The carrot is financial rewards of serving the interests of the corporate sponsors, mostly automakers and gasoline vendors.
Let me put it this way... if the media news CARED about truth, there would be a lot more press on how oil companies influenced the CIA and FBI to put most of the world's dictators in place... especially in Latin America and the Middle East.
Go ahead... link your sponsors to murder. See if they renew their contracts.
To illustrate the true power of corporate control, consider this:
All of the "war" cheerleaders wanted to invade Iraq... even though ALL THE HIJACKERS -- AND THEIR FINANCING, CAME FROM SAUDI ARABIA.
Hell, I'd like to see more press coverage on how the White House is blocking Congressional publication of documented Saudis involvement... 25 pages blacked out by the censors. What about the FBI agents who wrote the "Phoenix memos", and how the White House blocked FBI investigations of Saudi "exchange students" at flight schools?
It's a pity that it's not safe for Americans to travel... because travel is exactly the kind of thing that will open minds and hearts. Becoming a more insular nation will only play more into the hands of the crooks who engineer this anarchy, and that's a tragedy.
Amen
If so, then why didn't the opposition arrange demonstrations, arrange strikes without massive CIA intervention and actually manage to keep the strikes going, and demand changes?
Just like In Tinamen Square and the Prague Spring these people get rolled over by tanks. Non-Violent protest against communist regieme usually is a death sentence.
Fact is, Allende was democratically elected, and the opposition, even with CIA help, didn't manage to raise enough support in the population to get anywhere near overthrowing his government before they decided to start murdering innocent people.
Just Think! We could have saved the entire Vietnam war with just a little CIA Intervention. We could have saved trillions not to mention thousands of American lives.! The CIA and American military machine of the early 70s was far from omnipotent and they could have not been successful in supressing a truly popular government. Allende was very unpopular at the time.
If Allende was so bad for Chile, why couldn't the CIA stay out of it and let Chileans decide for themselves and throw him out of power?
And why did they support a fascist dictator if the goal was to "save" the Chilean people from suffering?
Facism is an ideology based on racial superiority, complete and total corporate subservience to government, military expansionism, and systematic religious persecution as a central aim of the government. None of these things existed in Chile under Pinochet.
Try telling the hundreds of thousands of people that had close friends or relatives killed because of Pinochet that the coup was "necessary", and that you think the CIA and a small group of military officers, none elected officials, had a right to take that decision on behalf of the Chilean people.
That was 3000 over 15 years not Hundreds of thousands..
Using your logic, that the whole Chilean coup was a result of CIA intervention and had only token popular support, I would say, "If only our CIA had used its magnificent omnipotent powers to have overthrown the Ho Chi Minh government we could have saved ourselves the whole Vietnam war".
I will respond to a selected few comments you have made.
;-)
I have been to Chile many times. I've talked to people who live there. The 1970s coup was very necessary. The whole country was an economic disaster and there were massive food shortages
I have lived in Chile since 1989, one year before Pinochet miscalculated the support he would get in a second plebiscite and was replaced by a "democratic" government.
The people you have talked to have told you one side of the story. As a matter of fact, you seem to have listened very carefully to them, as you have repeated the far-right-wing speech quite accurately.
Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power.
Might I point out that calling someone a "communist" in Chile amounts to saying that they do not glorify the military government and its actions? Note carefully that the criteria for being a communist has not changed. The difference is that from 1973 onwards you were "disappeared", tortured and often shot, while today you are just looked down upon by the right wing sector of society.
I bid you to take a few moments to think about your words: might it not be more likely that so-called communists resent the military government for having tortured and killed fathers, mothers, friends, family members, and, well, innocent people?
To this day, there is no understanding among the two sides in Chile. Day after day, year after year, the 11th of September comes and goes, and there is no understanding. So-called "communists" are told to their faces that the disappeared "do not exist", that they are a "marxist myth", or that they all ran away abroad. People mindlessly repeat the mantra that Allende's government was a disaster (it was, but not without considerable help from the USA and the Right), that it would have been much worse, look at Chile now, what a miracle, and so on.
Go on, I challenge you to read up about the Chicago Boys, about the amount of money spent manipulating Chile's media, about the right- and CIA- organized trucker strikes, about what Pinochet did to the public health system (AFP and ISAPREs).
Show your commitment to being well-informed, and form an opinion based not upon conversations with one side of an extremely polarised society, but on historical documents.
For your convenience, here are a few links, starting with an interview with Noam Chomsky: Secrets, Lies and Democracy, The Lawless State , U.S. Responsibility for the Coup in Chile. Please, take some time to Google a bit (or, heaven forbid, go to your local library
My motorbike travels in Chile.
Really?? I have yet to see an anti-Bush story on the Capitalist News Network (CNN). Considering that the guy is little more than a chimp in a suit and tie it is almost impossible not to ridicule him nonetheless ALL of the networks put a great deal of effort into making our village idiot look Presidential. Perhaps they are not as quick to apologise for, rationalize and justify Bush II comments, actions and policies but they certainly never call them into question either. Sure, they don't pull their punches but that is just because they never throw any punches in the first place.
This is actually a huge problem that could do serious damage to what remains of the principles of democracy in the US. For democracy to work the press has to be critical of those in power. Big business media in the US is not only consistently failing in this regard but shamelessly cheerleading for monkey boy's regime.
Yep, there are big problems with the media in the US but the 'Liberal bias' that you imagine is not one of them.
Richard Stalinman is still alive.
The US has a planned economy right now. The difference between the US's economy and a socialist economy is that giant corporations plan out the economy, not the government. I think Ken Macleod pointed out that the commies had black markets, and corporatists had black planning.
Also, the government doesn't awake to responsibility. People do, and once people's movements become big enough governments finally move just enough to keep them docile.
In the early eighties I took a weekend course entitled "Communication for Action" in Vancouver, BC, Canada from Fernando Flores, the one mentioned in the article. It was amazing to say the least. For anyone interested in honing their results producing skills I highly recommend Flores's work.
The course was on observations he made while a political prisioner in Chile under Augusto Pinochet's rule. He noticed that all communication between people comes down to four types: requests, promises, declarations and assertions. Later in his book he adds "assessments".
"[Fernando Flores] sees us at the intersection of three eras of our understanding of computers: computers as information-processing machines, computers as communication devices, and computers as the medium in which companies and individuals articulate and shift their identities. This is claimed to fit with the notion of an enterprise as a network of commitments, and the emergence of computers as instruments for people coordinating their actions and managing their commitments." It's interesting to note that Fernando is still teaching this twenty years later, mostly to corporations now. It was compelling to read of this earlier work involved with Cybersyn.
You can check out his work with Google, some history here and in particular you can check out his communication theory work in the book "Beyond Computation".
Beyond Computation book contents index. Fernando's chapter is entitled "The Leaders of the Future".
Beyond Computation.
The "cakewalk" comment came from former U.N. ambassador (and former assistent to Donald Rumsfeld) Ken Adelman in a Washington Post editorial on Feb. 13, 2002. Specifically, he said
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."
But there's other good stuff from actually inside the current government -- for example Cheney making the "guess" on Meet the Press (Mar. 16 '03) that the Iraqi Republican guard "are likely to step aside", or Rumsfeld on CNN (Mar 23, '03): "The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over."
And then you've got the "shock and awe" claims. For example, Gen. Richard Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Mar 4, '03): ""What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable." -- an obvious and naive (or would-be naive, were it honest) misreading of the situation.
The Bush administration and its backers clearly presented this to the American people as a quick, surgical act -- a simple and concrete step in the generally nebulous War on Terrorism. This was either foolish or a lie. Wrangling over those claims is as preposterous as Clinton wrangling over the semantics of his claims about Lewinsky.
And that's not even getting started with the claims about knowning exactly where WMD were hidden.
Yeah! Like JFK!
I know that reading actual source documents can be rather dry and boring, but it is enlightening.
I'll handle each of your challenges in individual posts. Some of them are not absolutely provable (little in life ever is), but I can at least demonstrate that your confidence in your worldview is sorely misguided.
Looking around at one of my favorite sites, George Washington University's National Security Archive I found this page.
This is what I found:
Notes from a conversation between CIA Director Richard Helms and President Nixon that outlines the possibility of ecconomic interference with Chile, but also the possibility of an assasination of Allende if other means cannot be used to force him to step down. (the online archive includes only the cover shjeet from a collection of handwritten notes, you'll have to go to DC if you want to see the entire thing. Perhaps I'll get a chance to go there myself to transcribe them into web available and searchable form.)
Minutes from the meeting where Project FUBELT was established that include (item 5) that shows that National Security Advisor Henry Kissenger was directly involved in the planning.
and
An Operating Guidance Cable that specifically states that the U.S. policy is that Allende be overthrown by a coup (item 2). Item 6 actually confirms that there is such an activity policy known as "Black Operations". Hmm, all this conspiracy stuff, yet not a tin-foil hat in site.
You shouldn't make such assininely easy challenges.
I'll get to your other challenges after I walk my dog. I do have my priorities.
Read, L
...disinfranchised. Note that these were non-felons who were placed on the felons list without due dilligence or any right of appeal. Note also that they were almost all Democrats, from seemingly hand picked precints that lean toward voting D. Given the move toward unverifiable and untraceable electronic voting, and the precident that Florida set, I think we should all assume that the US Republic is in grave danger.
The government was democratically elected, even if the second paragraph is wrong.
Fixing copyright
And what evidence do you have that Allende was running a dictatorship?
That should be 93,000. Yes, 93K people.
YOu disgust me!
When other posters rebutted your arguments, you came back to say that 3000 deaths is nothing to worry about. You are disgusting!
Where is your humanity, asshole? How would you feel if some military guy raped your daughter, murder your father, all of which because they didn't agree with your political leanings?
And you do nothing but repeat propaganda. The Cuban leftists were nothing but CIA provocateurs in disguise. This is well-established. But you don't care about learning the facts. You would rather justify the deeply rooted hatred that makes up your world view.
Go fuck yourself!
Not "proof", but ever is.
,originally publushed in The Observer, that makes a good case for U.S. involvement in the Venezuelan Coup D'etat that overthrew the Chavez Presidency.
Here is an article
It is fair to note that the article is accurate in it's disparaging remarks about both Otto Reich and Elliot Abrams.
The similarity between the ecconomic and historical events leading to the April Coup (US interference with trade, propaganda published by White House spokesmen in the US media, and demands that the democraticly elected President of Venezuela step down) are very similar to the events that occurred before the assassination of Allende in Chile.
This may not be the acual smoking gun, but this is.
US military personel and Intelligence Officers have been getting very upset when ordered to take part in poorly planned exercises that don't match ideals they joined up to defend.
two down. I may have to take a break soon, I do have a life you know.
Read, L
When it comes to CIA, even "nutritional principles" has a special meaning.
BTW, someone here said the following:
"This entire "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" and
"ends-justify-the-means" mentality is exactly the same
reasoning that caused the USA to back Pinochet in Chile.
If the above is true, then why don't we see CIA do something about countries like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Syria, Indonesia, Libya, Sudan ?
These countries are _actively_ supporting the moslem terrorists which have wrecked havoc around the world - from the American embassy bombing in Kenya to the 911 World Trade Center incident, to the Bali Bombing, to the Jakarta Marriot Hotel Bombing to the plot to kill president Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister in the coming October APAC meeting in Bangkok ?
The countries above have had records of giving aids to the terrorist groups, with money, training, intelligence, manpower, weapons, and provide safe havens to the terrorists.
Some of these countries are airing anti-western propaganda on their media outlets daily, trying to brainwash their people to hate the west so much that they will volunteer themselves to become human-bombs for their "holy-war", or Jihad.
No, I do not believe that America has done enough to curb terrorism. What Bush and his cabinet members are doing are just giving lip service to the anti-terrorism push.
What matters here is not the invasion of Iraq, but the eradication of those religious fanatics with their fervor bends to "destroy the infidels at all cost", whatever that mean.
One prime example of the one who is giving all kinds of aid to the terrorists is the country of Malaysia, which is providing the terrorists with safe shelters, military training (including bomb making, tactical planning, strategic and logistic assistances, weapons, money, and psychological-warfare in engaging the western world).
All the above activities are well known, and I believe that the CIA has duely recorded all these activities.
Unfortunately, we do not see any CIA action, overtly or covertly.
I believe that all the terrorists should be wiped out, and all their supporters should go to hell too.
This world is too precious to let the terrorists destroy it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Far more people would have died if Allende had taken over. That and there would have been terror famines as there are in most communist takeovers. Terror famines are great for destroying the social fabric of a country and making everyone a whimpering begging slave to the government
JFK wasn't killed by an American. He was killed by expatriate Nazis in cooperation with the Cuban government because he was about to expose how these Nazis were using Cuba as a base to clone Adolf Hitler and prepare an army of Uebermenschen to conquer South America.