Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id594800182
Allende disproved Western propaganda that painted Marxist governments as inherently violent, undemocratic, and authoritarian. His Popular Unity party did not achieve power through armed revolution, but at the ballot box. This worried the United States and its allies immensely. According to Chilean documentarian Patricio Guzmán, Allende represented a new and alternative political path that posed a threat to transnational capital. Such a path was intolerable to the business interests of the Global North and anathema to Cold War–era US policy makers. The result was that Chile was forced to experience an experiment in neoliberalism at gunpoint.
✏️ More history of the Chile socialist experiment, and why it was scary to other nations (i.e. USA). It disproved propaganda about socialism being bad, basically. Need more on this though and more evidence. followup 🔗 View Highlight
id594804249
In 1972, Allende spoke at the United Nations to denounce the growing unaccountability of Western multinationals around the globe. Allende told the UN:
We are faced by a direct confrontation between the large transnational corporations and the states. The corporations are interfering in the fundamental political, economic and military decisions of the states. The corporations are global organizations that do not depend on any state and whose activities are not controlled by, nor are they accountable to any parliament or any other institution representative of the collective interest… . The large transnational firms are prejudicial to the genuine interests of the developing countries and their dominating and uncontrolled action is also carried out in the industrialized countries, where they are based.
✏️ Allende spoke out against corporations back in 1972.. and the violent response was swift. 🔗 View Highlight
id594807800
In 1972, Ottawa joined Washington in voting to cut off all money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the Chilean government. (When Allende was first elected, most Western banks, including Canada’s, withdrew from Chile.)
✏️ Talk about being petty. 🔗 View Highlight
id594809050
Canadian economic relations, in the form of bank loans, investments and government supported financial assistance have helped consolidate the Chilean dictatorship and, by granting it a mantle of respectability and financial [endorsements], have encouraged its continued violation of human rights.
✏️ The power of money. The West withheld financial aid to Allende and drowned Pinochet in it, making it very clear how they felt about things: play ball, let us exploit your natural resources, and we’ll keep you around/reward you. 🔗 View Highlight