I am still catching up after being away in the UK last week. I will…
Here is a new argument for the Remainers – should be a winner
Here are a couple of Wednesday snippets on my (alleged) no blog post day. I have a great tip for the Remainers in Britian who are struggling to make any sense in their quest to hang on to the European dream (nightmare!). It is not a new argument but it has resurfaced in the US recently. Apparently, “the top US intelligence official” (words have meaning and intelligence usually means having some brain power) has told the US Congress that “the ballooning national debt … posed a ‘dire threat’ to … national security”. He told the Congress that the “fiscal crisis … truly undermines our ability to ensure our national security”. Truly used to mean something also. So here’s the thing all you so-called British Remainers. This will top your claims that Brexit will increase the rate of cancer in the UK. Just start raving on about threats to national security. A sure winner. It is the argument you introduce when you have run out of any semblance of an argument. Meanwhile, we now know that the British government, while in the EU, helped the right-wing forces (including the CIA) to kill the democracy in Chile in 1973, in what should be considered one of the more disgusting historical episodes. But then Salvatore Allende was clearly a threat to national security. What with all those Chileans that were improving their material standards of living under Allende and all!
The filthy Chilean conspiracy becomes more obvious
On January 23, 2018, the British historian, Mark Curtis, who specialises in the analysis of declassified government documents to analyse British foreign policy, produced a new archive for our benefit – Chile: Declassified.
He collates public articles and also documents that were previously classified under Government rules.
His file (drawn from the National Archives) – Chile, 1971-3 – provides some stunning revelations that bear on this sordid period in World history.
See also the excellent report from Sputniknews (January 23, 2018) – UK’s Secret Support of Murderous Dictator Pinochet – which goes into more detail than I do here.
The democratically-elected government in Chile was overthrown by a military coup (planes, bombs, murders etc), which was instigated by the US CIA and global financial interests.
You can read the declassified CIA documents on their involvement – HERE.
I was always interested in Chile not only because I was deeply angered by the actions of the Right and the brutality that accompanied and followed the Coup.
It was also became a laboratory for Milton Friedman and his goons from the Chicago Economics Department to impose their ridiculous policies onto a nation wtih the help of the IMF, who around then was trying to reinvent itself (after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system).
The behaviour of the IMF in Chile in the early 1970s clearly demonstrated its growing neo-liberal credentials. Their role in the Chilean overthrow of democracy was an early manifestation of their willingness to add their name, authority and resources to the development of the neo-liberal attack on the Keynesian orthodoxy.
Chile was the first notable action by capital to attempt to arrest the falling profit rates in the 1960s, which had arisen as income distribution became less skewed towards to the top end and workers enjoyed increasing employment security and prosperity under the full employment framework.
David Harvey in his 2007 article – Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction – wrote that “the economic threat to the position of the ruling elites and classes was now becoming palpable”.
He recounts how:
The US had funded training of Chilean economists at the University of Chicago since the 1950s as part of a Cold War programme to counteract left-wing tendencies in Latin American. Chicago-trained economists came to dominate at the private Catholic University of Santiago. During the early 1970s, business elites organized their opposition to Allende through a group called ‘the Monday Club’ and developed a working relationship with these economists, funding their work through research institutes. After General Gustavo Leigh, Pinochet’s rival for power and a Keynesian, was sidelined in 1975, Pinochet brought these economists into the government, where their first job was to negotiate loans with the International Monetary Fund. Working alongside the IMF, they restructured the economy according to their theories.
Harvey notes that the Chilean coup demonstrated how profit rates could be restored if trade unions were smashed and public assets sold off to the private sector.
The Chicago Boys and their mentors accepted theories, which were, of course, at the extreme end of Monetarism and free market deregulation. They were Milton Friedman’s intellectual soldiers and together with the military soldiers of the Chilean army, co-opted by Pinochet, they destroyed the democratic movement in Chile and wrecked the economy.
There is no doubt that the IMF was keen to do the bidding of the US government, which was prosecuting the neo-liberal agenda with vehemence on behalf of the large Wall Street firms, which provided massive funding to the Congressional members.
Milton Friedman and his gang at Chicago, including the ‘boys’ that went back and put their ‘free market’ wrecking ball through Chile under the butcher Pinochet, have really left a mess of confusion and lies behind in the hallowed halls of the academy, which in the 1970s seeped out, like slime, into the central banks and the treasury departments of the world.
They forced governments to abandon so-called fiscal activism (the discretionary use of government spending and taxation policy to fine-tune total spending so as to achieve full employment), and, instead, empower central banks to disregard mass unemployment and fight inflation first.
Later, absurd notions such as rational expectations and real business cycles were added to the litany of Monetarist myths, which indoctrinated graduate students (who became policy makers) even further in the cause.
The term “shock policy” originated with Milton Friedman who used the term “shock policy”. It was first applied in Chile by the so-called – Chicago Boys (Friedman’s doctoral graduates).
Of course, they first required the help of the CIA and the Chilean military to overthrow the democratically-elected Allende government and then brutalise the population (torturing and murdering dissenters who wanted respect for the democratic voice of the people) into submission.
This approach was then taken up by others, including Jeffrey Sachs who coined the term “Shock Therapy” in the mid-1980s, when he was hired to turn these mad ideas loose on Bolivia (1985), who were unable to meet the harsh debt repayment schedules demanded by the IMF.
Sachs is now parading as a progressive. A rat is a rat.
But now we have more understanding of the role that Britain played in the Chilean coup courtesy of some declassified material that Mark Curtis has collated.
I won’t go through it in detail but among other things we learn that:
1. Britain was upset that its “major interest in Chile … copper” was under threat because Allende wanted to nationalise the sector.
2. The British Ambassador to Chile at the time wrote to the UK Foreign Office on September 3, 1973 about his “first impressions” on Chile.
He wrote just before the Coup was that “One option for Chile future is a coup”:
If this were followed by a military-guided regime, or subsequently by elections bringing in a moderate, democratic government, I suppose one could look to an eventual revival with the help of American credits and some kind of Marshall Aid. It is on this that the business community are pinning their hopes.
He acknowledges that the “business community” were pushing for a military dictatorship to get rid of Allende.
In the same Memo, he wrote:
… many people in the poorer and depressed sections of the community have, as a result of President Allende’s administration, attained a new status and at least tasted, during its early days, a better standard of living,
On September 14, 1973, three days after the Coup, the British Ambassador wrote:
The coup was carried out efficiently and with a cold-blooded, surgical approach untypical of the Chilean character … It is likely that casualties run into the thousands, certainly it has been far from a bloodless coup”.
But the British government already knew that.
On September 13, 1973, the British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Hume wrote:
Circumstances of Allende’s overthrow and death render this case delicate… Accordingly we consider that it would not be in anyone’s interest to identify too closely with those responsible for the coup … But we still have enough at stake in economic relations with Chile to require good relations with the government in power.
So, never mind the murders and the slaughter. We adopt the ‘blind eye’ approach and get on with business as usual with the dictatorship.
Seven days after the Coup (September 18, 1973), the British Ambassador wrote:
I think I should make clear that, whatever the excesses of the military during the coup, the Allende administration was leading the country into economic ruin, social disorder and political chaos.
Yes, because the poverty was being reduced and the vast majority of people were starting to enjoy a “better standard of living”.
Can’t have that, can we?
And, next day (September 19, 1973), he showed his true colours:
Most British businessmen, whether they have investments here or are interested simply in exporting to Chile, will be overjoyed at the prospect of consolidation which the new military regime offers … Those British subsidiaries and investments which have emerged from the last three years relatively unscathed – [various including Shell] … – are all breathing deep sighs of relief … One thing does seem certain to me. Now is the time to get in. If we delay too long, while we may not miss the bus, we are likely to have difficulty in finding a comfortable seat”.
The correspondence continued and it was clear that the British government was seeing the new military dictatorship as a major source of export revenue via arms deals.
The UK Ambassador wrote on October 1, 1973:
Circumstances also will push them into directions which British public opinion will deplore. But this regime suits British interests much better than its predecessor …
Various other exchanges between British officials confirms that the British export of arms (Hawker Hunter planes etc) would accelerate to the Dictatorship.
Never mind that:
1. During the Coup, “Chilean Air Force Hawker Hunters were putting on an impressive show of force… the Hawker Hunters dived down at the Moneda Palace and with remarkable accuracy released their aerial rockets. These did much damage and set the Palace on fire. The President’s residence on the outskirts of the city, where resistance was encountered, was similarly attacked”.
2. “There are lots of stories of deliberate killings and brutalities … There were reports of summary executions of some of those who resisted the Armed Forces, and the large-scale round-up of government supporters and sympathisers, particularly foreigners. Several thousand were held in the football stadium where some received very rough treatment.”
3. “As to the ruthlessness of the coup, the military would argue that half-measures or a ‘soft’ coup would not only have been ineffective but would have led to prolonged civil war.”
But “the current regime has infinitely more to offer British interests than the one which preceded it. The new leaders are unequivocally on our side and want to do business, in its widest sense, with us. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will respond”.
And so it goes.
This was a case where a nation that was ‘reclaiming its state’ to enhance the lives of normal people was invaded by foreign capital using the military. It set a scary precedent.
Here is my band – Pressure Drop – recalling the event (I wrote this song in 1978, this version was recorded live in May 2011).
Play it loud and get angry.
This is what I am listening to while working today
Now, to calm us all down after thinking about Chile, here is something.
This is the complete CD – In the Mood for Love – by Japanese composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Umebayashis, which was released in 2000.
Conclusion
Relaxed now.
Upcoming fundraising event – Melbourne, Friday, February 16, 2018
I will be talking about our latest book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, 2017) – in Melbourne on February 16, 2018.
This event is to help the Bookshop which has been one of the only places you can buy alternative literature in Australia. It has been around for decades and is my favourite bookshop. I receive nothing from the entry fee.
More details:
Here is the flyer. The Bookshop tells me that they are happy for this to be circulated widely.
MMT University Logo competition
I am launching a competition among budding graphical designers out there to design a logo and branding for the MMT University, which we hope will start offering courses in October 2018.
The prize for the best logo will be personal status only and the knowledge that you are helping a worthwhile (not-for-profit) endeavour.
The conditions are simple.
Submit your design to me via E-mail.
A small group of unnamed panelists will select the preferred logo. We might not select any of those submitted.
It should be predominantly blue in colour scheme. It should include a stand-alone logo and a banner to head the WWW presence.
By submitting it you forgo any commercial rights to the logo and branding. In turn, we will only use the work for the MMT University initiative. It will be a truly open source contribution.
The contest closes at the end of March 2018.
That is enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2018 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
Umebayashi’s OST for Zhang Yimou’s House of the Flying Daggers i also love.
In 1970 I was a young teacher in the UK. A small group of us lefty Utopians were discussing options for migration to Chile. Six of us migrated to Australia instead. Little did we know of Australia’s secret intelligence involvement in promoting South American dictatorships, or the subsequent US aided toppling of an Australian government.
The election of the Whitlam government in 1972 seemed like a new beginning for Australia. Australian agents were supposed to be withdrawn from Chile. They weren’t. The Chilean coup came as dreadful shock. The dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 also locked in Australia’s Friedmanite future.
Under Frazer, Hawke, Keating, Howard and Abbot the neoliberals tasted victory. They are now destroying our democracy as fast as they dare.
“In the Mood for Love” – terrific piece of music – thanks Bill.
Allende – he may have been truly committed to economic justice for his people, however, his policies were sucking the Chilean state down the gurgler. He went to far too soon and wanted to go further. His deposition by internal forces under the aegis of external forces was tragic. It seems Venezuela is probably not far from a similar fate.
It seems to me political action driven by crazy ideology, whether of the left or of the right is destined to fail at great cost.
Is it too much to ask that decency, fairness and balanced commonsense prevail?
Let me begin by saying that I am a Danish sociologist, who have 10.000 nonfiction books and have studied and used Pierrre Bourdieu’s sociology for twenty years. Sort of by accident, I began looking into the taboo reality of Western empire a couple of years ago. It began after I saw what the EU did to Greece and how the Western media ‘covered’ reality. This led me into MMT – where Bill’s intro to MMT was the most important mindblowing interview that I have ever heard. From there I kept on studying MMT, while I also moved from the media coverage of Greece to the coverage of Syria. This has given me a rather critical (objective) perspective on our Western states.
I recently read a bit about the coup in Chile by a late Danish historian, where he said that Allende also made mistakes… As if this somehow justified the coup. I read this after I had read another place that CIA had 700 false stories out about Chile in international media to ‘inform’ the world.
Searshing for it just now, I can see that it was by Seymour Hersh: “Approval was granted for a last-minute increase of the propaganda activities designed to convince the Chilean Congress that an Allende election would mean financial chaos. Within two weeks, twenty-three journalists from at least ten countries were brought into Chile by the CIA and combined with CIA propaganda “assets” already in place to produce more than 700 articles and broadcasts both in and out of Chile before the congressional election-a staggering total whose ultimate influence cannot be measured. By late September, a full-fledged bank panic had broken out in Santiago, and vast amounts of funds were being transferred abroad. Sales of durable goods, such as automobiles and household goods, fell precipitously; industrial production also dropped. Black-market activities soared as citizens sought to sell their valuables at discounted prices. – The pressure was on.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/12/the-price-of-power/376309/
Comment no.2
Besides learning MMT and having Mosler’s book The 7 Deadly sins published in Denmark, I have spent 15 hours a day the past couple of years on unemployment benefits – and now no pay – to research our Western empire and the critical truth about its media and academics. And I think it is fair to conclude that the CIA/Council of Foreign Relations (MI6 etc) control the Western people by fabricating a Platonic cave that almost nobody has been able to diagnose. This applies as can be seen with the Chile case to historiography as well.
Perhaps the most hidden thing in this is that the people working behind the scenes to orchestrate it all cannot avoid thinking that the Western acclaimed academics, journalists and historians are not really sharp. They are most probably considered laughable easy to manipulate, while they generally consider people cattle to control.
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein knew that the greatest epistemological obstacle comes from people not willing to face terrible truths. People have a tendency to wishful thinking. Perhaps because they are moralistic creatures. So, my lines here will sound absurd to most people. But the problem doesn’t solve itself. In fact, the problem is getting still more dangerous. And I have a Wittgensteinian one-and-a-half-truth to back up what I say.
It goes like this: begin by thinking about the recent NATO war on Libya. What do know today? Well, we now have the British parliamentay report that basically everything piece of information about Libya up to and under the NATO attack on Libya was false. Most importantly, Gadaffi did not kill his own people and Al Qaeda presence was bigger than estimated. Now, this is of course important. But the implications are really much more hard hitting. Because, if you think about there were practically no opposition to the lies back then (and we can go back and check the media reports, the political statements etc. etc.). And so we have it, this is also crystal clear evidence that everybody in Western states shared the exact same lies. There is simply no way of denying it. We live in totalitarian states. Moreover, the politicians, academic analysts and journalists never went back and apologized nor did they take any responsibility for a nation destroyed by lies. And we even have many of the very same people – politicians, analysts, journalists and ‘volunteers’ (doctors etc.) helping Al Qaeda within Libya – go on with the exact same script in Syria. We are told that Assad is killing his people and that we are we are fighting ISIS (while we in fact are backing ISIS, just as we were bombing for Al Qaeda in Libya).
The problem is not new, it is just getting still more dangerous as we have no leftist/oppositional media today. Corporate media journalists such as George Monbiot are systematically attacking university professors, who are critically researching our wars from Iraq to Syria. https://piersrobinson.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/searching-for-the-truth-about-syria-and-the-white-helmets/
The Council of Foreign Relations began controlling the (25) most important media hundred years ago. And to give just one more example, I read this excellent article on Korean historiography this morning https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/13/99697/
Comment no. 3
I was rather exhausted in the interview below, but I think that I managed to explain some important things about the states we live in today (this is the second interview released the other day – made in Oslo in the fall of 2017): http://www.hannenabintuherland.com/otherregions/plurality-of-opinion-is-enemy-now-danish-sociologist-lars-jorgensen-to-the-herland-report-tv/
Comment no. 4
My page on the Western empire’s tradition of using proxi terrorism from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Libya and Syria here. Curtis’ new files will of course be added. My page on this is marked as spam – so I will put it in as my home page below.
An interesting Counterpunch article from 2003, an interview with M Hudson.
http://michael-hudson.com/2003/10/chiles-failed-economic-laboratory/
“Sachs is now parading as a progressive. A rat is a rat.”
LOL.. “cuddear” Bill.(translation from Bajan to English,,, Have pity) He probably now feels the guilt from Chile and Russia. He at least tried to help Yanis with Greece, should he not get at least one brownie point?
LOL again.
Lars J.
There is no doubt that we are inundated with propaganda from the West. However, I am sure we are equally inundated by propaganda from the West’s enemies and competitors.
So where does that leave us?
What are we supposed to believe?
Leftist and rightist regimes, and many in between, have all perpetrated terrible things on their citizens who have stood up for justice.
There is nowhere to find succour.
Lars J.,
I’ve just noticed that the author of the article you reference:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/13/99697/
namely, George Burchett, is the son of Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who openly supported the Communist insurgency in Vietnam and was vilified for it. I see George is an “artist” living in Ha Noi.
What chance is there that he is in the pay of the local regime? If that is the case, what credibility can be given to the article? We just don’t know.
One of the many shameful acts in UK’s history was to send Pinochet home to Chile, after he came to London for medical treatment. This was perpetrated by über-Blairite Home Secretary, Jack Straw (a supposed leftist in his youth), who ignored Spain’s request for extradition of the old Fascist dictator.
This is in marked contrast to the treatment of Julian Assange, who has had a round-the-clock police guard waiting to arrest him if he steps out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, even though the Swedish extradition request has been dropped!
A senior district judge at Westminster magistrate’s court turned down his request to have his UK arrest warrant dropped. That’s right, one of those judges that the Remainers think are so wonderful because they insisted that MPs should have another say on Brexit, despite their already repeatedly voting in favour of a referendum, and when the referendum was finally announced (by Cameron) it was made clear that what the public voted for would be the last word.
Unfortunately, we gave them the “wrong” answer, and so they now want to keep asking the question until we give them the “right” answer.
Thanks for the link to Hudson’s Chile article, Lars.
I read his “Land belongs to god” during break at work earlier today. Fascinating stuff. =)
Henry Rech
“However, I am sure we are equally inundated by propaganda from the West’s enemies and competitors.”
How could you be? It just isn’t possible.
The USA has hundreds of agitators in left leaning Latin-American countries. Many of these people are supported by large US think tanks like the Cato institute, Center for Democracy (though strangely enough it forgoes the title under some circumstances)
The language is uniform, that they are impartial and offer critique of the ‘state of democracy’ in such places, but when you read what they have to say its evident these people operate to undermine.
1. A democratically elected government.
2. If said government is trying to reduce poverty and not towing the IMF/World bank Austerity ideology.
So these ‘journalists’ get to work and create news noise information poor, junk news that is designed to destabilise countries provide a poor excuse that there is a debate worth having.
The USA has a hand in funding and giving intellectual ideology to the right-wing violent student in Venezuela. The USA basically sponsored and approved the rigging of the Honduras election and seems to not care the glaring vote rigging. Some recent examples.
I continue to read about Chile these resources are very useful.
Comment no. 5
@Henry Rech,
The most important sociologist after Max Weber, Pierre Bourdieu, has this important truth: it takes nothing from the truth that the person, who utters it has an interest in it.
Now, what we do know today, even by some of the least critical and most censored mainstream Western historiography? We know that the US is and has been the aggressor for the past 70 years.
We also know that the US aggressions have always been accompanied by lies and propaganda to legitimize if not justify the aggressions. Otherwise the aggressions would be unjustifiable and illegimate. This means that the US not only do NOT have an interest in the truth – but that they HAVE TO lie. Every time.
On the other hand, every nation attacked by the US simply has an interest in the truth, about what is happening to them. They need no lies. In fact, they CANNOT afford to lie at all. Why? Because, given the control and power of the Western media in the world, they know that the Western media and politicians would immediately use any single documented lie as evidence that they are generally lying.
In conclusion, it is a false epistemological concept that ‘both sides’ need to and will use lies and propaganda. It is like a bully attacking a smaller child in the schoolyard. The bully has to lie to justify his violence, while the small child will undermine his case if he lies.
Also, people have no idea about the power and resources of the US propaganda apparatus. I have a page on this subject too. Here is a rather enlightening quote from the page by a very well informed critical American professor, who has written severeal important books on the US empire:
“In 2010 (..) Washington Post reported that the national security state had swelled into a “fourth branch” of the federal government ― with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year.” Exploring the Shadows of the US Security State: How I Learned Not to Love Big Brother.” —– Professor Alfred McCoy, 2017
I have not had time to arrange all the information that I have collected on the wars, the terror and the media power of the US/Western media apparatus etc. (as nicely as I would have liked to). But if you go to my pages on my home page, you will find important credible academic and journalistic information, which show how my argument and conclusion above is justified on empirical grounds as well. I have pages on many of the important illegal and false US/Western wars.
I will make another (perhaps final) comment with links for people interested in the empirical verifications. If you press my name on this comment, you will come to my home page with recommended epistemology literature, just to show people that I know about philosophy of science too. Knowing how people think is the most important subject in sociology.
Comment no. 6
A bit important information about Burchett (I found today)
This is from an enlightening text on Burchett’s journalism – among many fine quotes I just pick this, because it shows how the US journalism has always been controlled: “In the film documentary, Public Enemy Number One (1980), however, an elderly and reflective Burchett justifies his diplomatic role in more pragmatic terms: “The Western journalists accredited to the UN were being lied to by the American Military PR authorities, and they knew this, so they’d come to me [because] I had the actual documents, and these were completely contradictory to what they were being told” (in
Bradbury, 1980).” http://easa-australianstudies.net/files/09_8-Burchett%20FINAL.pdf
This review of Burchett’s book The Cold War in Germany (1950) might be of special interest to Bill M. I don’t think that it is perfect, but it has some important points. I will quote the end of the review: “Therefore, the issues of currency reform, disarmament, and the distrust of the German people of the occupying Allies are all factors showing the reasons for the split of Germany and the beginnings of the Cold War. These factors make it clear that the Russians were trying to not only unify a neutral Germany, but were complying with all of the requests of the Western Allies. The United States wanted a split between the two blocs so that it could control the western bloc and would not have to share power with another country. Additionally, the United States wanted to be economically linked with western Germany so that it could invest in the German heavy industries and exploit the resources and available markets that Germany had to offer. It is evident that the United States used propaganda to portray the Soviet Union as the bully in Europe, when it was really the United States who was actually the power-hungry country stirring up conflict.” http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/133c/133cproj/04proj/JohnsonBurchett50-042.htm
If you click on my name on this comment, you will come to my page with resources on the corporate history of WW1 and WW2 and the connection between nazism in Germany and (thousands of imported) nazis in the US after WW2. This page helps explain the Phoenix terror strategy used by US all over the world after the big war. – This is connected to my page on Western-backing-terrorists.
Comment no. 7
@Jerry Brown @Rech – OK, I willl elaborate a bit.
Now, I have known for twenty years that most sociology books, professors and world known authors are misleading us. Today, I also know for sure that this is the case with the economic profession. So, what about the history and political science professions and journalism? – These three branches work together because journalists and political analysts explain the present, while historians later use their reports and analyses in their research (of course they also use ‘more authentic’ material).
The great historian E. P. Thompson wrote this about the hidden machinery of our Western states: “…the growth of an unrepresentative and unaccountable state within the state has been a product of the twentieth century. Its growth was, paradoxically, actually aided by the unpopularity of security and policing agencies; forced by this into the lowest possible visibility, they learned to develop techniques of invisible influence and control. It was also aided by the British tradition of civil service neutrality: this sheltered senior civil servants from replacement or investigation when administrations changed, and afforded to their policies the legitimation of ‘impartial, non-political’ intent.” ‘The Secret State’,1978 (can be found online)
The essential thing for our secret state machinery to work smoothly is of course that neither journalists nor political analysts talk about it, which they don’t. Only exceptions are people like Mark Curtis. So, you wouldn’t know anything about this, if it wasn’t for people like Curtis. Just as you wouldn’t know much about the Korea war reality without Burchett etc.
The most excellent important diagnosis of how our states work to let you not know, not notice and not take any interest in this crucially important subject comes from Harold Pinter (I strongly recommend his talk). Here are a some text from my page on the subject (click on my name for this page):
“…across the world the extinction and suffering of countless human beings could be attributed to rampant American power. “But,” said Pinter, “You wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.” Pinter’s words were more than surreal. The BBC ignored the speech of Britain’s most famous dramatist.” — John Pilger, 2007
BBC, in short, ensured that the British and other peoples did not know about the most crucially important speech about the Western states’ war crimes since 1945 (see the list on left bottom). In Pinter’s own words: “You wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.” — Homo Sociologicus, 2017
I will make one more comment connected to this – TO BRING IT ON, as you asked me to do.
Comment no. 8
“BRINGING IT ON”
First, I will refer to William Blum’s master list of US overthrows and attempts to overthrow foreign governments. I will not copy the list just provide a link to it:
“Overthrowing Other People’s Governments: The Master List. By William Blum
September 09, 2014 “ICH” – Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government). Please notice that this is published on Robert Parry’s site, the man who dropped his career in corporate journalism and exposed the Iran-Contra scandal etc. (Parry died a couple of weeks ago) – I removed the link as it was said to be ‘spam’. Please google it.
Recently, I read a kind of poetry explanation of CIA’s history (on Facebook – now I am connected to the man, who is clearly a knowledgeable observer), which I shared on my home page with some pictures. I hate making mistakes, so I work to come to the truth of matters. And even though I cannot personally say for sure that every sentence in this is true, I have come to the same conclusion on almost all of it. The things, I am not sure about are things that I haven’t looked into yet. I urge Americans and other Western people to begin looking at the US REAL ‘foreign policy’ and history of ‘foreign policy’. This is helpful – click on my name to see it
Comment no. 9
Burchett’s warning to the world: his one-man heroic trip to Hiroshima to report, what had happened. NB. Some of the most important historians have long claimed that the bombs were absolutely un-necessary for the war against Japan. As Japan was about to surrender, when they were dropped.
I have just watched the half hour documentary about Burchett’s career. It is a very good prism for how suppressed the ‘other side’s reality is, when the Western empire target nations. I begin to think that Burchett is one of the greatests journalists in the 20. century.
“Public Enemy No. 1, by Bradbury, David; Filmakers Library, inc. Publication date 1980. Link: https://archive.org/details/publicenemyno1
Burchett’s warning is more relevant than ever. Now that the US might use nuclear arms on North Korea. Obama signed a bill for one trillion dollars to develop more ‘usable nuclear arms’. And of course the US has used depleeted uranium bullets in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria etc., where the cancer rates have exploded.
There are many parallels with the overthrow of the Chilean Allende government and the Australian Gough Whitlam Labor government.
Rupert Murdoch and his media empire initially supported the election of the progressive Gough Whitlam Labor government in 1972 after 23 years of Conservative government but soon turned against that government. Union militancy was quite strong then with regular strikes and large wage increases being granted, other issues were the withdrawal of the Australian military from the doomed Vietnam War, political engagement with the PRC, new laws to protect the environment and the rise of the women’s and Aboriginal rights movements.
Above all the resources minister at the time Rex Connor had plans for a greater role for the government sector in the development of Australia’s mineral and energy resources and a greater share of the wealth generated being used for public benefit rather than just going to foreign and local wealthy private investors.
The CIA were involved in the political and media campaign against the Whitlam government which has been detailed by numerous credible sources. Rupert Murdoch and nearly all of the corporate mass media were instrumental in turning enough of the electorate against the Whitlam government so that the Conservative Malcolm Fraser led government won in a landslide victory in 1975. Step by step subsequent Conservative and Labor governments implemented the neoliberal agenda that has affected most of the developed world to the present day. No doubt British corporate interests in the Australian resources sector and the former colonial master’s representatives were also involved.
Whitlam did make some mistakes such as recognising the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which certainly energised the small local diaspora against that government. Union militancy was also excessive. Trade protection for Australia’s manufacturing sector was also reduced rapidly which gave no opportunity for businesses to adjust. Perversely the full employment mandate for government was also abandoned by this government.
Any excesses would however have self adjusted by a balanced and relevant mass media and an engaged electorate through the democratic process so the interference in the Australian political process was really the initial stages of a political and economic coup d’etat by the international corporate oligarchy, plutocracy and state security sector and we are still under the effective control of this alliance. The Australian Labor Party does not apparently have the will, courage or influence to break free so our best bet is probably to break the influence of the failed neoliberal duopoly by voting for the minor parties such as the Greens and for independents. The South Australian elections may be the first state to break free from the duopoly with Nick Xenophon’s SA Best party currently being very popular?
“Whitlam did make some mistakes…….”
He secretly supported the Indonesian takeover of Timor Leste and he and the Australian Labour Party turned a blind eye to subsequent Indonesian war crimes. A shameful period in Australian history (which has been only recently resolved). All because Australian wanted a disproportionate share of the oil and gas under the Timor Sea.
Don’t forget the US is at war with itself with many branches of the right competing against a nominally progressive establishment led by figureheads like the Clinton’s and Obama and my favoured branch of the progressives led by Bernie Sanders and various progressive groups. The Democrats may become more progressive and may gain the majority in both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency and then maybe the largely destructive excesses of the US corporate oligarchy, the plutocracy, the state security apparatus and the US military will start to be curtailed. A people’s movement of considerable magnitude will however be essential to balance the inevitable push back. The ever increasing wealth inequity in the US and the rise of China and an expansionist Russia will force political change in the US.
The fight against Fascism and Japanese militarism over 70 years ago was a huge one and the Soviet Union, the US, China, the British Empire as well as many smaller nations only just prevailed at great cost. The US and the rest of the democratic world were right to stand up to the advance of international Communism which even exceeded the Fascists in their brutality. Unfortunately the dumb right gained the ascendency in the US and made matters worse by fighting wars that should never have been fought such as in Vietnam, the second invasion of Iraq and in Afghanistan that have resulted in the deaths of millions of non combatants, and meddling in far too many local wars between left leaning groups and the local military or oligarchs. The toppling of democratic elected governments is also unjustifiable.
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Another of the Whitlam government’s failures was the refusal to accept those fleeing South Vietnam during the last stages of the Vietnam War and after the Communist victory. Malcolm Fraser later allowed large numbers of Indochinese refugees to settle in Australia (their anticommunist beliefs helped) which must have strengthened the case for the US and other nations to also accept more which contrasts with the current abuse of asylum seekers arriving by boat by all recent Australian governments.
Henry Rech, quite how you’ve interpreted my straight forward question to you as some sort of agreement with your position is beyond me.
It isn’t. I couldn’t disagree with you more. The notion that ‘enemies and competitors’ have equal access to your consciousness is absurd and quite obviously not credible.
Dear All
I have been travelling the last few days and have only briefly attended to the blog. I don’t like censorship but I also don’t want my blog to be turned into a forum that discusses whatever the commentariat thinks is important to them.
I have thus deleted a several comments that were nothing about MMT or my work but rather about wars, nazis, etc.
These are not unimportant topics but I won’t have them here unless they advance our understanding of MMT.
If you don’t like that then start your own blogs and write to your hearts’ content.
best wishes
bill
Dear Bill,
OK,
But I think that my comment about how tens of millions of Germans could have believed the bullshit that they were told about the Jews and how hundreds of millions of Americans can believe the bullshit that they are told about government financing did in fact help understand MMT. Because the theory has to explain why only a small percentage of economists and politicians are telling the truth.
When you see what many economists and many politicians, educated at so called leading universities, say about the subject of government financing, do you not ask yourself the question, ARE these people really that stupid or are they only pretending to be that stupid? I have been asking myself that question since I was 13 years old. My answer changed every few years, until March of 2003. It has not changed since then.
As a matter of fact I have had my own blog for years. Yet like many bloggers no one has ever visited my blog except me that I know of. That means I would have to pay to get people to go there. I can not afford that.
Finally as the documentary series Dirk Gently exposes, EVERYTHING is connected to MMT.
Curt
How nominally capitalistic economies operate under the condition of an all-out war is the best proof provided by history that what MMT says is true. But I realize I did not really make that point and I do apologize for getting off track of the main focus of your blog.
John G,
My apologies, I thought you were being ironic, because to me, my statement is obvious.
Anyway, not sayin’ anymore – Bill’s finger is hovering over the delete button.
I don’t understand how something that is, in real world terms, impossible, can be ‘obvious’.
This blog post is about the toppling of Allende’s government hence the political drift of the comments?
Gross sneering ‘the poor may unfortunately get a brief taste of the good life’.
@Bill- what do you make of Jeff sachs moves to reduces inflation in twilight soviet union.From what i have read his
Approach,austerity and forcing private market discipline on newly privatised firms did reduce inflation in USSR-Russia.
Not much more positive can be said about 90’s Russia though…..But was their another way?
I ask because most of material i have come across regarding that era on Jeff is positive.