Thread by @KurtHackbarth

THREAD: What the #US media won't tell you about the popular rebellion in #Chile.

In 1973, #Nixon/#Kissinger provoked a coup to overthrow the democratically elected #socialist government of Salvador #Allende, leading to the 17-year nightmare of the #Pinochet dictatorship.

In addition to torturing, disappearing, and murdering thousands of dissidents, Pinochet turned #Chile into a laboratory experiment for #neoliberalism. With the help of Milton #Friedman and the "Chicago Boys," they set to work privatizing everything they could get their hands on.

Health, education, pensions, roads, even WATER-everything was sold off to #Pinochet's cronies. #Chile became the shining, model state for our new, post-Keynesian world. That this only could've happened by installing a #fascist dictatorship was omitted.
theguardian.com/sustainable-bu…

Well, not everything was privatized. The military refused to accept the private pensions (AFPs) forced on everyone else, instead receiving a public plan. And the copper industry (CODELCO), nationalized by Allende, remained in state hands and provides 20% of the nation's income.

Plus, until just this year, 10% of export sales from CODELCO went directly to the military, no questions asked. In sum: a military funded by a PUBLIC industry and whose members receive PUBLIC pensions shoving privatization down everyone else's throats.
reuters.com/article/us-chi…

Fast-forward to October 2019, when the Santiago metro announced its fifth rate increase in three years, setting off student protests. As this widely shared graphic shows, this was the tip of the iceberg for a population ground under by 40 years of repression and #neoliberalism.

The response of right-wing president Sebastián #Piñera- multimillionaire former head of the privatized national airline LAN- was brutal. Using powers existing in the 1980 Pinochet constitution, still in force, he declared a state of emergency and curfew.
telesurenglish.net/news/Breaking-…

Over the past week, the Chilean military has killed, wounded, & arrested with not a peep from the #US. The official death toll is 19 but the number is doubtlessly much higher. Still more are dying who could be saved because of underfunded health services.
theguardian.com/world/2019/oct…

Just as one example of the continuity between the #Pinochet-#Piñera regimes, Andrés #Chadwick, Minister of the Interior and head of the police (until yesterday, when Piñera fired his cabinet in an attempt to mollify protests) cut his teeth in the dictatorship. It shows.

Protests have been massive, including a general strike Wednesday and Thursday and a march of a million on Friday. Here, a group of citizens defy curfew to the sound of the classic song "El baile de los que sobran" (The Dance of Those Who are Left Out).

Here, an emotive homage to singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, killed by #Pinochet thugs days after the 1973 coup (only after they'd symbolically cut his hands off). The song is called "El derecho de vivir en paz" (The Right to Live in Peace).

In #Allende's last radio address from a bombed presidential palace, he declared (5:42) that much sooner rather than later, "The great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society." What needs to happen for this to occur?

First and foremost, President #Piñera must resign to face criminal charges in the #Hague. Orders to fire into the public can only have come from the top. This is a crime against humanity. Second, a people's assembly must be called to -finally- draft a new constitution.

Third, the police/military apparatus must be completely dismantled. #Pinochet-style #fascism never went away - it was simply biding its time. Let this be a lesson to any would-be #socialist government anywhere.

Viva Chile. Viva el pueblo. Vivan los trabajadores.