The locus of hope

I'm skipping town for a few days again, but while I'm gone you might want to read this amusing bit by Naomi Klein:

According to [WSJ columnist Bret] Stephens, the radical free-market policies prescribed to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by Milton Friedman and his infamous "Chicago Boys" are the reason Chile is a prosperous nation with "some of the world’s strictest building codes."

There is one rather large problem with this theory: Chile’s modern seismic building code, drafted to resist earthquakes, was adopted in 1972. That year is enormously significant because it was one year before Pinochet seized power in a bloody U.S-backed coup. That means that if one person deserves credit for the law, it is not Friedman, or Pinochet, but Salvador Allende, Chile’s democratically elected socialist President. [...] The code was later updated in the nineties, well after Pinochet and the Chicago Boys were finally out of power and democracy was restored. Little wonder: As Paul Krugman points out, Friedman was ambivalent about building codes, seeing them as yet another infringement on capitalist freedom.

(Hilarious on so many levels, isn't it?  It's a shame Milton Friedman can't speak to us from beyond the grave, since it'd be interesting to hear exactly which circle of hell he ended up in.)

Also on the topic of Latin America, the always-perspicacious Mark Weisbrot discusses the formation of a new regional organization independent of the U.S. and Canada and Matt Kennard explains a few of the many reasons to be excited about what's going on in Bolivia.  As Kennard says, when I want to feel a little better about the world I just look at what's happening to the south—where people are emerging from decades of unimaginable horror funded and directed by the U.S., taking control of their lives, and demonstrating what real hope and change look like.

Comments

[NomadUK]

It's just unfortunate that the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have to serve as the necessary distraction to keep the US military and intelligence agencies from dealing with Latin and South America using their usual methods. Hopefully, the collapse will come soon and they, too, will get some relief.

[Catherine]

Yeah, but, but, if that socialist gummint hadn't passed that law, there wouldn't have been any earthquake to punish those godless socialists. (Actually, "godless athiests" is a much funnier term.)

I'm fresh from "How the World Works," a class taught by Pat Robertson.

Bless you, President Allende.

And Nomad, good point. I also like to think of movements in the South when I get depressed, and sometimes forget the "distractions" that make these movements possible. Thanks for the reminder.

[DancingOpossum]

I just saw John Pilger's beautiful documentary, "War on Democracy," which is precisely about the rise of people power in Latin America, and the shucking-off of U.S. colonialism there. Wonderful and well worth watching for anyone interested in the region, or in social justice: http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=171

[Harpfool]

Shed a tear for us up here north of the 49th Parallel (Canada, for the geographically challenged), where we've shifted in the opposite direction - towards the American protofascist paradigm. Sadly, we're an active part in the "distraction" - but at least there's a silver lining. Wonder if I could find work in Bolivia...

[soccer jerseys]

NomadUK - spot on. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered greatly and looking back at these wars almost 10 years on, we're still not safer - if anything, we are catching more bad guys here at home, not less.