After the Times calls the Chilean President’s decision to push hard to rescue the miners a “extraordinary political calculation”, here’s Tom Scocca:
It’s a foreign concept, sure. Here in the United States, everyone agrees that the job of an elected official is to “spend political capital” to “control the narrative” that will determine whether that official is regarded by the media and the public as a success or a failure, which will determine the result of the next election. This is why, 21 months into the Obama administration, we still have mass understaffing on the federal bench and nobody cares. It’s why we can’t even go through with digging a lousy railroad tunnel—who will absorb the political damage if there are cost overruns?
So when our horse-race-obsessed, broke, self-pitying nation sees Chile get something difficult done, obviously it must be because the Chilean narrative demanded it. Not because the thing needed to get done.
By the way, Chile’s president serves for one term.
(This is via Jay Rosen)
WereBear
So he has nothing to lose!
El Cid
I never spend any time wondering what the NYT thinks about Latin affairs, as there are real and interesting sources to turn to, rather than people who either are or like to seem like they’re chatting up the foreign policy establishment.
Piñera is still a politician, and this was not merely an almost flawlessly organized rescue, but a highly managed operation from the point of view of image and politics. Not so much for Piñera to get re-elected, and not just to establish the appearance of competence for the first straight up right-wing government since the restoration of Chilean democracy after US fave Pinochet. He has an agenda he wants passed, and stage managing both the operation and its appearance was part of that.
And there’s nothing cynical in the least about that. If you can do the right thing and also make sure it helps you get loads of popular support, well, that’s what political leaders should do.
JPL
The Wall Street Journal said that it was capitalism at work.
The Government taking over the mine had nothing to do with it……..lol
MikeJ
Thank god FDR didn’t have anything as difficult as a few dozen people stuck in hole to deal with. As a four termer he would have been fucked.
RSA
That’s stupid, but it’s not quite as stupid as this WSJ opinion:
__
debbie
I hope Mr. Massey was watching this rescue very closely, and I’d like to see the miners’ union organize its workers to demand the same kind of treatment.
El Cid
@El Cid: By “not so much” I’m not departing from the fact that he cannot be re-elected.
MikeJ
@El Cid: Historically, being a right winger who is popular with the right people in the US will do more for putting you in power in Chile than any constitution or election will.
El Cid
@RSA: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT.
Even Piñera himself declared that there must be reforms to the laws and regulations and business culture that treats workers as disposable and which prioritizes short-term profits over safety and the development of Chile’s work force.
Which of course refers back to the victory of Milton Friedman’s “miracle” under Pinochet’s Chile, the ones who had the brilliant idea of making life for the population objectively and measurably worse and whose economic innovation consisted mainly of a vast program of selling of raw materials (forests, for example) and of cutting any restrictions of safety and environmental standards on the vastly concentrated mining industries.
Linda Featheringill
Rescuing the miners was an awe-inspiring feat.
One of the most interesting things to watch, though, was how nobody gave up. From the beginning, the odds of getting them out alive were not good. No matter. Full steam ahead, doing the best that you can.
Bravo!
And if there are rewards to be passed around, all the better.
El Cid
@MikeJ: There’s that, but there were a dozen years of Soshullist governance, and no matter how well they did, people tend to drift toward a change. Except in the US, where our retarded citizenry want to give another chance to the bastards who held our House for a dozen years and assisted such shitty policies, you know, because the economy still sucks.
And the soshullists (who followed what were formally center-left governments) indeed did tremendously well, including reversing the famed privatized pensions [Social Security] for the poor and public workers, good luck finding any US pundit mentioning that, something which would interrupt them jacking off about how awesome it was for Pinochet to privatize pensions. Also ending the untouchability of many involved in leading the murderous cruelty under the dictatorship.
El Cid
@debbie: If anything Massey was relieved that their accidents killed the miners right off hand, so that he didn’t have to pay for all these fancy rescues.
Dennis SGMM
Where are all of the libertarians and small government types when you need them? Why aren’t they producing very serious editorials proving with mathematical certainty that 33 men working eight hours a day should have easily been able to dig their way out instead of vacationing underground and picking the pockets of Chilean taxpayers?
Brendancalling
Last night we were watching disc 2 of “John Adams” (great flick, btw). It was the episode where Adams is in the French court, and as he tried to interact with all the face-painted courtesans, it was impossible NOT to think of our ridiculous media and political culture.
Scocca’s piece brought it to mind as well.
mistermix
@Dennis SGMM: You must have missed the news that the miners had paid their individual rescue fees to the county and were therefore entitled to a rescue.
debbie
@El Cid:
If the unions had any sense, they’d grab this opportunity, not to grandstand themselves and their egos, but to seriously push for better working conditions and more compassionate treatment of their workers. I know they’re all gruff, burly guys, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some real, humanity-type agitation. Make Mr. Massey the boogy man, and point out that working conditions aren’t as 21st century as people might think they are.
Maude
@mistermix:
Or, if they had to pay a fee when they reached the top and didn’t have it, back down they go.
This kind of refutes Ronnie’s I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.
arguingwithsignposts
@Dennis SGMM:
Win.
arguingwithsignposts
@RSA:
Daniel Henninger may not be the worst hack on the WSJ propaganda page, but he’s certainly trying hard.
Because “our blind faith in the market” had abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with the 9.6 percent unemployment Henninger mentions in the first few paragraphs of his wingnut welfare submission.
El Cid
@debbie: They are. That was one of the themes of protests during the rescue and it emerged as a them from the rescued miners as soon as they got out — ‘we have to make sure this doesn’t happen again.’ That mine was well-known to have a shitty safety record, and despite complaints, nobody did anything.
HRA
“Chile has a long tradition in mining, which developed during the 20th century and made the country the world’s top producer of copper.[9] Since 2000, an average of 34 people have died every year in mining accidents in Chile, with a high of 43 in 2008, according to a review of data collected by the state regulatory agency Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería de Chile (SERNAGEOMIN).[10]
The mine is owned by Compañía Minera San Esteban (San Esteban Mining Company), which has a poor safety record and has suffered a series of mishaps, with several workers being killed in recent years.[4][11] Between 2004 and 2010, the company received 42 fines for breaching safety regulations.[12] The mine was shut down in 2007 when relatives of a miner who had died in an accident sued company executives, but was reopened in 2008[13] despite failing to comply with all regulations. The matter is still under investigation according to mining committee Senator Baldo Prokurica.[14] Due to budget constraints, there were only three inspectors for the Atacama Region’s 884 mines.[12]
Chilean copper mine workers are among the highest-paid miners in South America.[15] Although the accident itself has put into question mine safety in Chile, serious accidents in large mines are rare, particularly in those owned by the state copper mining company, Codelco, or by multinational companies.[9] However, smaller mines—such as the one at San José—have generally lower safety standards.[9] Mine workers at this mine were paid around 20% higher wages than at other Chilean mines, due to its poor safety record.[16][7]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Copiap%C3%B3_mining_accident
All these men needed to escape through a ventilation shaft was a ladder. It was required and it was missing.
Dennis SGMM
@arguingwithsignposts:
Henninger obviously meant that we should continue to have blind faith in the other markets – not the ones that created opaque financial instruments and then borrowed forty times their arbitrarily assigned value. He certainly didn’t mean the markets that caused a couple of trillion dollars’ worth of wealth to disappear from pension funds and 401Ks, nor could they be the markets that have the Fed seriously considering “quantitative easing” as a remedy for our economic malaise.
Bob L
@RSA: The article is just wow. To bad the WSJ are such cowards and don’t allow comments because I wanted to opine how the mine’s owners are the true victims here in this disaster and were is their miracle drill?
arguingwithsignposts
@Bob L:
I think the “free market” could probably scrounge up the money to put Henninger down in a mine shaft for *at least* 33 days.
futzinfarb
@RSA: On balance, though, just imagine how loud they’d be cheering if the miners had been required to pony up a $75 fee in advance to support the rescue department, and the one shlimazel miner who hadn’t was left behind.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bob L:
The WSJ does allow comments. It’s a sucky system, and you have to register, but there it is.
Oscar Leroy
Yes, worrying about controlling the media narrative is a waste of time.
honus
@debbie: The once proud UMW has become a republican lap dog in favor of mountaintop removal and gutting the Clean Water Act.
Mountaintop removal mega-strip mines mine huge amounts of coal with enormous machines, tons of explosives, and very little labor. As a bonus, Massey buys up all the land evacuates most of the people. Entire communities in southern West Virginia have simply disappeared. You see, for the coal companies, people were always just an annoyance anyway. The modern method of mining has eliminated most of the human factor.
bkny
@debbie: i’ve been wondering if massey would have hung in there the 17 days the chileans did searching for signs of life.
Nick
Oh please, does anyone else NOT believe if this happened in the United States, we’d be arguing over who to blame for it taking more than two months to get them out of the mine.
By Labor Day, everyone would be screaming Obama’s a failure and the media would be showing crying wives screaming “OBAMA, WHERE ARE YOU? SAVE MY HUSBAND!”
debbie
@El Cid:
I had heard even the Chilean president was promising to make changes, but I was hoping for a bit more noise from UMW in this country. If what Honus says is true, I think that that is more of a betrayal of the workers than any self-important union official. However, one of the miners did an interview with the BBC this morning and said he was determined to make mining totally safe. Good for him!
@arguingwithsignposts:
It kills me that conservatives insist that $250,000 isn’t a high income, especially when I remember how, not so long ago, they were bitching about NPR announcer Carl Kasell’s salary of $75,000 (I think).
@bkny:
Never.
Brachiator
I just don’t get this trivializing focus on the political aspects of the rescue, or on the the president’s supposed “stage managing” of the rescue. This seems to rest on the false notion that the rescue’s success was inevitable, and everyone just had to show up, do their part, and take a bow.
If it were so easy, we would be applauding how well Dubya stage managed Hurricane Katrina.
It will be interesting to see what actually happens here.
Also, I haven’t been able to find much background on the owners of the mining operation, Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny.
Nat
Look, I’m foreign, and while I would really like to agree with you guys, Sebastián Piñera’s presidency was off to a very rough start when he took office and a major earthquake hit Chile, so he was smart enough to turn the miners’ rescue into political capital. I’m not saying he didn’t care about the miners, but he’s not just a noble and preoccupied guy, he’s a politician too.
I believe there were rumors going around that they could have taken the guys out a day before they did, but they adjusted the rescue to the president’s schedule so he could be there. Americans seeing everyone in the third world as being genuinely nice has a bit of the patronizing myth of the noble savage. Oh, the innocence we’ve lost! It’s not all so black and white, I think.
Brachiator
@Nat:
I am certainly not one who is saying that the president is especially noble.
But I am saying that the discussion about political capital is especially trivial.
Stefan
It kills me that conservatives insist that $250,000 isn’t a high income, especially when I remember how, not so long ago, they were bitching about NPR announcer Carl Kasell’s salary of $75,000 (I think).
$250,00 is not a high income for professionals. However, when working class cops, firefighters, subway conductors, bus drivers, nurses or other public employees make over $50,000 a year by piling on overtime (i.e. working a lot more) then they’re practically rolling in it and are becoming rich as Croesus at our expense.
Look, it’s not hard if you think about it.
Robert Waldmann
Maybe he’s just planning ahead
“Chile President – Unlimited non-consecutive four-year terms”
Which, by the way, makes sense. Consecutive terms can make a President a President for life. Never again term limits can make a governor of Virginia spend all of his time in New Hampshire (recall the “Wilder for resident” bumper stickers).
Maybe some day but you have to leave and try to win it from the outside is the way to go.
The reporter who tried to figure out why the President didn’t just leave them down there to die really really ought to be sent to interview the miners about his “political strategy” theory.
Paul Siegel
In the U.S. the emphasis is always on competition. In this case competition would have been useless. Worse, self defeating.
The thing that made it work is that Chile encouraged cooperation. They got all the Chile mining companies to contribute, many scientists and engineers from across the world to contribute, and many governments to contribute. The whole thing was a great tribute to COOPERATION.
There’s a lesson for us here. Tone down competition; encourage greater cooperation.
hamletta
@Paul Siegel: It’s not unheard of here. The Gulf oil spill brought all the engineers in the petroleum industry together. You didn’t hear about it, because it was only reported in the local media in Houston and New Orleans.
I want to know why these miners survived, despite the apparently shoddy safety record.
When we have a mine collapse in West Virginia, we don’t get footage of miners reunited with their families; we get footage of memorial services.
What have they got that Massey is too cheap to buy?
John Bird
Wrong thread.