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Posted on 11/25/2019 7:49:12 PM PST by jfd1776
Born in Valparaiso, Chile, on November 25, 1915, the great Latin American leader, General Augusto Pinochet.
The very idea of referring to a Latin American ruler as “great” is a rarity. So many of the rulers south of the United States have been vicious, not just recently, but since ancient times. From the Incas and Aztecs of old to the Fidel Castros and Nicholas Maduros of the present, Central and South American rule has traditionally resulted in permanent poverty, usually awash in blood.
Augusto Pinochet is the exception.
He ruled from the date of his coup d’état, September 11, 1973, through his semi-retirement in 1988 (and remained a senator for life thereafter). He is universally reviled, primarily for his success in driving Communism out of his country. Today, Chile is about the only stable, prosperous major country in Latin America, primarily because of Pinochet’s reforms… and the Left will forever hate him for it.
The Left adored Pinochet’s predecessor, Salvador Allende, because he brought Socialism to Chile, with the intent of joining the Soviet orbit as a Communist nation. Pinochet led a military coup in 1973, with a goal of not only overturning Allende, but of inoculating Chile from Communism forever.
The Left immediately started calling Pinochet a Fascist, but outside of his military uniform, nothing could be further from the truth. His economic reforms were designed by the team of Milton Friedman’s best students, hired away from the University of Chicago, and their goal was the opposite of Fascism: to privatize the nation’s retirement funds, to reduce bureaucracy, to stabilize currency, essentially, to make Chile a free country, the freest economy in Latin America.
With this record of success, who does the Left vilify? Augusto Pinochet, who brought prosperity to his nation…
And who does the Left champion? Hugo Chavez, Lula da Silva, Che Guevara… The Communists, corruptocrats and mass murderers who have long consigned the many millions of Latin Americans to generational, inescapable poverty.
Pinochet stands alone as one who recognized the dangers of Communism and acted with determination. At a time when others in Latin America sought advisers from Soviet Russia, Pinochet hired advisers from the United States.
Think of the world of 1973, and consider the choices made by Central and South American leaders in those days. Soviet Communism had already murdered tens of millions of its own. The killing fields of Cambodia were still fresh in everyone’s mind... Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution in Red China was just getting underway, with tens of millions more victims yet to be killed. And still, from Western academics to Third World rulers, the path of communism was a delight.… and remains a delight, despite the historical record, for so many millions of western fools even today.
Almost 50 years after his coup, the modern Left still doubles down on its hatred of Pinochet. They attack him for dealing out capital punishment to Communists, refusing to admit to themselves that Communism is itself the most severe form of capital punishment ever inflicted upon this world.
In the 20th century, Communist rule killed a hundred million people. No natural disaster – hurricane, earthquake, tornado, or volcanic eruption – can hold a candle to the devastation caused by Socialism. And no disease – from plague to AIDS – can even come close. Communism is itself a death sentence.
Pinochet almost single-handedly transformed his country into a modern representative republic, blessed with limited government and a path to prosperity that few others south of the United States have ever enjoyed. If his methods were sometimes severe (a couple thousand communists executed without the full benefit of civilian trials), it was because he believed it necessary. And in fact, surveying the surrounding countries in the years since, it is hard to disagree with his decision.
Here in the United States, we don’t even execute mass murderers anymore… Speck, Manson, and so many others have been allowed to die of natural causes in prison, decades after murdering their innocent victims. Perhaps, sometimes, we are too kind. Pinochet looked at Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and decided not to make the mistake of being too kind. He did the best he could to cut out the cancer in his beloved nation.
Today, we see the popular culture champion the advocates of mass murder… Ruth Bader Ginsburg, abortion’s biggest advocate since the eugenicist Margaret Sanger, is held up on a podium as a heroic role model for young women. Jack Kevorkian, inventor of the oxymoron “assisted suicide,” was a pop-culture hero for the Left. The bloodthirsty monster Che Guevara has his visage emblazoned on the T-shirts of impressionable youths.
It is long past time to redeem the memory of Augusto Pinochet. Fifteen years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Augusto Pinochet saved Chile from the Soviet orbit, dealing a needed blow to Leonid Brezhnev’s evil record of so many successful conquests.
General Pinochet was a hero. Thank Heaven for putting him in Chile when his country needed him.
Copyright 2019 John F Di Leo
John F Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer, transportation manager, writer and actor. His columns are regularly found in Illinois Review.
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September 11, 1973 is one of those days that I remember where I was and what I was doing due to a major news event. I was backing my 1965 Chevy Impala out of a parking lot at the University of Southern California when I heard on the radio that Pinochet had overthrown Salvador Allende. I was overjoyed and saw the event as a major turning point in the Cold War.
The Left hates Gen Pinochet to this day (remember when they had him, an Argentine Senator, detained for a year in Britain 20 years ago on the basis of a warrant issued by a Spanish judge - the bastards).
They hate him BECAUSE he was the first leader in the post-war era to show that the “inevitable scientific progress of Marxism-Leninism aka ‘communism’” COULD BE STOPPED and reversed.
He has always been one of my all-time heroes for this reason. He was - quite literally - the savior of Argentine sovereignty and culture, not to mention economy, which he transformed into the most advanced and successful in Latin America.
Viva Pinochet. Lots of leftist scum in this country need some helicopter rides as well.
Chile
Even as a teenager listening to The Joshua Tree, I laughed at Bono and his lionization of commie puke Victor Jara.
They seem to be having a few hiccups at present.
CHILE CHILE - I meant to type ‘CHILE’ !!! *LOL*
Lord, I HATE the fact we can’t edit our posts here on FR after we hit “post”. My fingers tend to run ahead of my mental review process!
Of course, I was THINKING “CHILE”, but for some unknown reason I slipped ‘over the border’ while typing my post. (Probably because the father of one of my oldest friends is an Argentine).
*Mea Culpa*!!
Remembering a great leader on the 104th anniversary of his birth. Viva Pinochet !
Bookmark
It has happened to all of us.
Allende was allowed to take the Presidency with conditions and had violated them. The Chilean legislature and Supreme Court had already declared Allende’s Marxism unconstitutional.
Pinochet was reluctant to lead the coup, he had to be asked to do so by members of the legislature. Chile, up to that point, had the longest history of elected governments with peaceful power handovers in South America. They were very proud of that record. It is thought that he only acted after being shown proof of the planed massacre. Cuban and other foreign troops were in the country ready to do a hard takeover. There was going to be a coup, the only question was who would lead it, the Chilean military or Allende.
The legislature was disbanded but the courts continued after the coup and operated fairly independently.
There was an election in 1980 on a rewritten constitution and to say yes or no to Pinochet having a eight year term as president. He won.
In 1988 there was a second election. He lost that one by about a percentage point. He stepped down.
That picture should be posted in all the major Art Galleries. The kid (I know it is a gag) deserved an A+.
Something tells me that if we could just get rid of 3 million in our jails we could save $80 billion for starters. Banish them to a gulf in Siberia where they can be put to work to serve out their terms. Next build the wall.
“Think of the world of 1973, and consider the choices made by Central and South American leaders in those days. Soviet Communism had already murdered tens of millions of its own. The killing fields of Cambodia were still fresh in everyone’s mind”
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE PINOCHET! I researched him in college because the Commies were screaming about him taking over. What I found then was that the Allende and his Commies were seizing private property left and right, particularly some very large foreign companies, including the one that ran their huge copper mine. That may have tipped it...you want to be a Communist and left alone, don’t be stealing from foreign companies.
Having said that, the “Killing Fields” didn’t start until 1975 (I remember that too)...the author could have looked it up.
Another cia intervention bump. We certainly need more deep state helping out the world. The date has not lost its irony over time.
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