On September 11th 1973, General Augusto Pinochet declared a coup against the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende. Pinochet systematically murdered, tortured, and disappeared thousands of labor activists, folk musicians, and political dissidents. Two years later, Milton Friedman visited the country with economists known as ‘los Chicago Boys” and advised the military junta to impose ‘shock treatment’ on the population.
Latin American expert Greg Grandin explains, “Friedman defended his relationship with Pinochet by saying that if Allende had been allowed to remain in office Chileans would have suffered “the elimination of thousands and perhaps mass starvation … torture and unjust imprisonment.” But the elimination of thousands, mass hunger, torture and unjust imprisonment were what was taking place in Chile exactly at the moment the Chicago economist was defending his protégé. Allende’s downfall came because he refused to betray Chile’s long democratic tradition and invoke martial law, yet Friedman nevertheless insisted that the military junta offered “more room for individual initiative and for a private sphere of life” and thus a greater “chance of a return to a democratic society…
What was considered extreme in Chile in 1975 has now become the norm in the US today: a society where the market defines the totality of human fulfillment, and a government that tortures in the name of freedom.”
AFI celebrates the life of Milton Friedman for spreading the gospel of inequality at home and abroad.11.09.1973 one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history made by terrorist organisation which still exists and is more dangerous than all islamists together - CIA.
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we saw a propaganda with a human person called nial ferguson talking about how wonderful this friedman and pinochet human persons both were, and we kept having this nagging thought that went something like this:
pinochet…
pinochet…
where have we heard that name before? wasn’t he the war criminal dude who thought it would be great fun to send dissident human persons up in helicopters and drop them drugged and tied up from a thousand feet into our ocean?
proving once again, economists like friedman and ferguson both make some of the most spectacular fascists the world has ever seen.
