This sounds like I'm implying something, but I'd really like to know the answer to the following question, well, I haven't exactly read much Chilean history, if you know what I mean:
Why does it seem like the that Salvatore Allende's government was democratically elected was the only good thing about it? I mean, the Left goes on and on about it. Sure, democracy is a Good Thing, but sometimes democratic countries make mistakes when electing their governments. I mean, we elected Jean Chretien as Prime Minister for 3 straight terms for crying out loud.
What, other than that it was democratically elected, makes Allende's government so great to begin with? Kissinger, the thug that he is, surely did not base his decision to oust Allende solely on his (Allende's) reputation (such as it is) as a democrat.
I'm sorry, Richard, but yours
Tina — Fri, 2002-09-13 15:33I'm sorry, Richard, but yours seems to be a very strange reaction. I don't claim to know much about Chilean history, but it seems to me that it doesn't matter if Allende's government was "good" or not. We elect bad representatives who make bad policy decisions all the time in our democracies but that doesn't mean that they should be overthrown and replaced with criminal dictators who will viciously trample on human rights. The salient point here is that a democratically-elected government was overthrown in a US-backed coup. It doesn't matter if Allende's government wasn't "so great to begin with". Maybe democracies are flawed but they've been far more successful and humane than all the rest.
Perhaps the blog to which you referred shouldn't have made his posts as a direct counterpoint to the 9/11 attacks in New York (thereby implying that the US was simply a victim of some of its own extremely misguided foreign policy decisions in the past). However, I think he is justified in pointing out that the US should recognize its own guilty conscience in certain matters. I don't personally believe in "just desserts" in this case.
Yeah, this was more of a theo
Richard — Fri, 2002-09-13 18:11Yeah, this was more of a theoretical question, because I don't know a damn thing about Chilean history either. Maybe the point I'm making is that theoretically, democratic governments do nasty things to their populations, and simply because they were democratically elected, shouldn't exclude the possibility that they might trample on human rights themselves.
I'm just saying that the only reason Allende is so revered is because he was elected and ousted, and not for any policy programme he might have had. What was he responsible for, policy-wise? Was he a good governer, or did he deserve to be replaced (i.e. was he a wolf in sheep's clothing, Pinochet being just a wolf)? (There are many people who are not American citizens who say Bush should be replaced, but at least they say why he should be replaced.)