This probably proves that I’m sexist pig in the mold of our despicable leerer-in-chief, but Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Margaret Thatcher are closely linked in my mind. I remembered that at least one of them was a great lover of Pinochet. Turns out both were great lovers of Pinochet! Here’s Margaret Thatcher eulogy for the wise Chilean defender of freedom. And if you want to make yourself sick, here’s the Washington Posts’ Jeanne Kirkpatrick-quoting, hippie-punching love letter to Pinochet:
The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet’s coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.
This is why I can’t go along with the don’t-speak-ill-of-the-dead stuff. Pinochet murdered thousands and tortured many more. But because he hated teh communism, he’s still a great man to the very serious people.
If liberals extol Che or Castro (personally, I’m not a big fan of ether), it proves that they’re unserious moral monsters of course. But revering a mass murderer who in some demented sense was “on our side”…that’s par for the course in establishment media.
shortstop
That has more to do with the GOP/conservatism being sexist — how many powerful women has it produced?
Valdivia
I absolutely love that one of the last refuges of his defenders (he was a murderer but he wasn’t corrupt!) came crumbling down with the Riggs scandal after 9/11.
In my traumatized youth I had to sit through a conference in which the main speaker was Kirkpatrick. Wonder why I never recovered?
c u n d gulag
If it took Communism for a vile monster like Pinochet to be the Big Cheese in his country, he would gladly have memorized a couple of lines of Marx, instead of some Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson.
Unlike Nixon, Reagan, and the Bush’s, at least his crimes caught up with him towards the end of his life.
C.J.
Countries have to suffer through the growing pains of brutal murderous dictatorship before gaining glorious democracy, obviously.
It’s just a bonus that those dictators hate the Reds as much as we do.
Omnes Omnibus
Weirdly, Kirkpatrick’s love of Latin American dictators is one of the reasons that the US tried to appear hands off during the Falklands war. I would bet that Thatcher had very little that was good to say about Kirkpatrick despite their shared Pinochet love.
schrodinger's cat
BTW Sully’s Thatcher obituary is out and he does not disappoint.
According to Sully, her achievements are bigger than Meir and Gandhi, why? shut up that’s why. I have a feeling that one of Sully minions reads BJ comments because I had mentioned Gandhi and Meir in my comments on an earlier thread. He also references her stance of Mandela and the poll tax as minor missteps.
raven
And from our friend Pat Lang:
Joel
As I read the
utopian socialistsneoconservatives, thescientific socialistsliberal interventionists, theGerman Social Democratslibertarians andrevolutionary socialistsRepublicans — whatever I could in either English or French — I came to the conclusion that almost all of them, including my grandfather, were engaged in an effort to change human nature.Certified Mutant Enemy
@raven:
and discredited once and for all communists’ ideology.
China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, etc. disagree.
mistermix
Serious people know that you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Amir Khalid
How did they put it, back in the Cold War days? “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” I don’t remember exactly who said it first, or about whom, but I think the sentiment still applies today.
Oh, and DougJ: personally, I’m not a big fan of ether, either.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
She wrote that famous article making a distinction between ‘good’ dictators and ‘bad’ ones. You can guess who were the good guys of course. ETA: I see some version of said argument is up above. She wrote a longer ‘serious’ academic version of it which got touted in poli sci classes for a while.
In the end though Reagan came around to Thatcher’s side if I remember correctly no?
Forum Transmitted Disease
The failure of any justice system to throw Pinochet into a tank of live sharks on worldwide TV must rate as one of the great moral failures of our time.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@raven: Pat’s gone senile, time to put him in a fucking home.
ETA: possibly he’s trolling.
srv
@raven: Mondale would have surrendered at Rekyjavik.
John Arbuthnot Fisher
Yes, but MoveOn was mean to General Betray-us.
patroclus
Che presided over summary executions without trial of many Cubans after the revolution; thereby destroying his reputation. His face made a good poster though… Similarly, Pinochet presided over summary diasappearances/murder and rampant torture after Allende was deposed in a military coup in 1973. Although one was left wing and the other right wing, they should be regarded similarly.
Thatcher was more complicit than Kirkpatrick in that, when Pinochet was indicted by a Spanish court and detained in the U.K. awaiting trial for his role in the coup and the disappearances (and remember, the UK and Spain are both part of the EU and are supposed to honor one another’s judicial systems), Thatcher lobbied for, helped provide legal assistance to and publicly championed Pinochet’s challenge to the indictment, which ultimately put enough pressure on the Labour government that they utterly caved and released him; ostensibly on poor health grounds. Pinochet then made a triumphant return back to Chile, threw off his blanket and stepped out of his wheelchair demonstrating that the “poor health” excuse was almost a complete ruse; thereby shaming Jack Straw and Labour and the indictment was never prosecuted (although some civil damage claims were locally in Chile).
Pinochet thus virtually completely escaped justice for his murderous actions in one of the saddest episodes of recent times. Che, of course, did not so escape…
eemom
Sweet Jayzus help me: Greenwald really nails it today re “speaking ill of the dead.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-death-etiquette
This can’t go ooooon….
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
“Grit” is the new favorite word on the Right.
Remember when they all liked “kerfuffle”? This is like that but better :)
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
From a purely Cold War point of view, it makes sense. Argentina was a valuable client state in the war on communism – as I recall we used them as a middleman and ally between ourselves and quite a few of the region’s other fascists, kind of like the way we used Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to support Salafi nutjobs. I quite understand why Reagan and company would’ve thought long and hard about whether it was worth it to back the British.
Another Halocene Human
Jeanne Kirkpatrick is horrible. So is Thatcher, more or less, although I don’t know all of the specific circumstances of her reign although the whole Reagan buddybuddy thing is enough to make me suspicious.
raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Since Cole still leaves his link up I’ll save you the clicks.
Reagan and Thatcher; The Dream Team has Passed ps I don’t think he wrote it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia:
The Atlanticists won, yes. The US provided things like satellite imagery to the British while staying officially out of it. This is a halfway decent book on the war. The authors are British and one was a war correspondent with the British forces, so it does lean Brit. Given that caveat, it is rather evenhanded about the causes of the war and the events and negotiations leading up to it.
Valdivia
I recommended this documentary a while back but given the Pinochet topic and the UK complicity in trying to protect him from indictment I think it is appropriate to link again. Truly terrifying and also heart wrenching when you realize our hero has sullied hands like most of the middle class did in Chile back then.
For one little spot of justice: Amazingly Guatemala is currently prosecuting Rios Montt for crimes against humanity during the civil war. He too was one of Jeanne’s certified Good Guys.
Heliopause
If liberals extol Che or Castro please link me to it, because in all the years of reading lib blogs I’ve never seen it. You have to go to old left type places like Counterpunch (and even there you won’t find unreserved praise) to find anything like it. So no, it doesn’t exist, or only barely does.
raven
@Kay: The Grit is our famous vegetarian joynt.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I read somewhere that some SAS guys froze to death rather than give up their position.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
the Latino version is that the US was with the UK all along. The funny thing is that even if argentineans want Las Malvinas back, it was clear to most everyone the war was clearly a manuever by the military to salvage the dictatorship. It ended up collapsing it.
One of my favorite lines from that time: Que nos manden al principito! (meaning send us your little prince and we will show him, referring to Andrew I think)
Mike G
Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for
liberal democraciesprofits for American corporations.Fixed it for you.
Chris
To me, it’s not even that; the egregious thing is that they don’t support people like Pinochet simply as a lesser-of-two-evils, realpolitik kind of way (like we did with, say, Stalin in World War Two), but as an actual good and desirable kind of government in and of itself. They support fascists not just as an alternative to Soviet style communism but even as an alternative to democratic leftism – as we saw in, say, Iran in the 1950s, where a Pinochet character overthrew not a Soviet puppet but a democratically elected leader who by all accounts wasn’t even anti-American.
We saw it again in 2002 in Venezuela – even though Chavez was elected through democratic elections, even though there was no longer any Soviet bogeyman trying to make inroads into our hemisphere, our Republicans still considered it appropriate to support a military coup against the government.
People like Pinochet, to them, are not an unpleasant but necessary moral compromise, or a means to an ends like “defeating communism.” They’re the ends in itself. Communism’s simply something you can use as an excuse to support the thugs. If communism is no longer a threat, they find another excuse.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Were you thinking of this?
scav
Tossing a crumb onto the sexist pig pile, I suddenly saw a good production icon/theme that uses Thatcher as Lady MacBeth. Might even go all space-trilogyish and have her inspire a few President MacBeths in a parade of same holding glasses that stretch to the crack of doom. Can’t you see it with the plastic masks, honestly?
Kay
@raven:
Hah! I would go there.
It’s the perfect name for a vegetarian joint.
When I give my daughter homegrown (leaf) vegetables, she says “Do they taste like dirt? Because you like that. We don’t.”
Bubblegum Tate
It’s not just that–it’s that they think Pinochet’s horrible dictatorship actually gave Chileans FREEDOM! By which they mean “free markets” because that’s the only real freedom.
scav
Yoikes for juxtraposition. ‘Mickey Mouse Club’ star Annette Funicello dies at 70
sproing goes the brain
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Musta been.
raven
@Kay: Stipe owns the building it’s in. Great place but NOT low cal!
askew
All this talk about Reagan and Thatcher meddling in Chile and other parts of Latin America is depressing and makes me feel ignorant.
So how does Carter, Clinton and Obama’s records stack up in Latin America? I know Obama has the Honduras mess that Hillary greatly assisted in, which is his biggest black mark in Latin America.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@raven: I don’t go to his site anymore for any reason at all. He banned me and I’ll respect that.
raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I self deported when he told me he wasn’t a “gun enthusiast” after Sandy Creek.
Chris
@Heliopause:
I see fashionably radical college students wearing Che Guevara T-shirts or medals from time to time. That’s about it. Certainly I can’t think of any Democratic equivalents to Jeanne Kirkpatrick extolling the virtues of communism from a highly paid government, media or think tank position.
Valdivia
@askew:
I think a lot of people would say neglect. That he didn’t really focus on the area. But as a friend of mine (activist in the region) once said: the less the US pays attention the better off we are!
It is true though that the chinese have been making off like bandits in the region but I don’t know–given our crazy Republicans–that the US govt could do anything to counter it given that it is infrastructure investment that we don’t even do at home.
schrodinger's cat
Who is this Kirkpatrick that you are all talking about. The only Kirkpatrick I know is a physicist and is a man.
Valdivia
@Chris:
I would add academics of a certain vintage to this. And maybe even some young ones. I saw it a lot–truly–in conferences, and in faculty meetings. Out right loud defense of both of them, like a religion with no acceptance of any mistakes or wrongdoing.
ETA: I think there are a couple of Latin American think tanks that do that kind of thing. Maybe WOLA? But I may be totally wrong. I know NACLA does great work but sometimes indulges the ‘good old days of revolution’ rhetoric.
Cassidy
@askew: We’ve had SOF in Latin America for a very long time.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Jeane Kirkpatrick. Reagan era UN ambassador and reputed lover of Bill the Cat.
shortstop
@Valdivia: Thanks for this.
schrodinger's cat
The last time I checked Britain after Thatcher is still a shadow of its former self when it comes to world affairs. The torch has been passed to the cousins across the pond. Britain is very much the junior partner in world affairs. See for example, the Iraq boondoggle.
So what exactly is the national greatness Sully is talking about that Thatcher brought?
Chris
@askew:
I know Carter cut off a couple of really nasty dictatorships in Central America from foreign aid (which is why righties blame him for “losing” Nicaragua) – but he kept up aid to others (prompting Oscar Romero to write him a letter saying “you say you are a Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people.”) And whatever aid the U.S. cut under Carter, other Western nations simply stepped in and replaced – Israel did that in Guatemala, I believe.
Clinton, I don’t know as much about.
piratedan
@scav: feel sadder about her passing than Thatcher tbh…… maybe that makes me a bad person.
bemused
Conservatives only love and revere strong women with grit if they are conservative. If they are liberal, they are feminazi bitches.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, btw as per your recommendation and that of many others. I saw the original Tinker Tailor with Alec Guinness as Smiley, this weekend. You were right. It is great.
jon
In Tucson, I often drink at Che’s Lounge. I also have a Chairman Mao bag with “OCCUPY TIBET” on it. Clearly, all us liberals are danged and going to Heck.
Communism: socialism as run by assholes. Is it worse than the capitalism-by-assholes model of fascism? The jury is still out on that one. But the past centuries have certainly shown that asshole rule requires a lot more “maintenance” than democracy ever has.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Or, in the case of Chavez, continue to use the moldering body as an excuse Weekend at Bernie’s style.
Valdivia
@shortstop:
so welcome.
patroclus
@askew: Democrats tend to adopt “Good Neighbor” or “Alliance for Progress” type of attitudes towards Latin America in the vein of FDR and JFK; which basically means increased trade relations (i.e., reciprocal trade agreements) and investment and less of a focus on military alliances and anti-communism. Carter at least rhetorically emphasized human rights as well – which some could argue helped lay the basis for accountability and progress after the various military coups – and, of course, he honored the Panama Treaty timeframes and turned over the Canal Zone as originally envisaged (and opposed by Reagan). Clinton and Obama didn’t/haven’t done a whole lot – NAFTA, CBI, Colombia and Panama free trade agreements are the highlights (although many liberals hate most of them).
Chile wasn’t really Reagan though – it was Nixon and Kissinger that backed the Pinochet led coup and which turned a blind eye to goings on in Argentina which led to the disappearances era; which then led to the Falklands/Malvinas. Reagan’s major failing was Nicaragua, El Salvador and Grenada; HW Bush – Panama.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Kay: Sadly – or comically – Mr. Q often says the same to me.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat:
Holding onto enough of the empire to set up banking havens in Bermuda, BVI, Cayman Islands, Jersey, and Guernsey.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cool. Glad you liked it.
Lurking Canadian
It’s not hard to figure out, really. If the thug is murdering and torturing, or even just saying nasty things about rich people, he’s a communist and a monster come straight from Satan himself.
If, on the other hand, the thug is murdering and torturing poor people, sokialists and labour organizers, then at worst he is guilty of some extreme actions in defense of Freedom, and at best he is the moral equivalent of George Washington.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@raven: Somebody tell me once again– why is this neo-Confederate fuck on the blogroll?
ETA: I meant that fuck Pat Lang, not raven, of course.
Another Halocene Human
@Heliopause: They probably got confused by all the people praising Motorcycle Diaries. Of course, from what I can tell, the same people all watched that biopic of J. Edgar Hoover, too.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I have recalled the sequel from the library. I am looking forward to seeing Smiley’s people. Have you seen it?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Senility? No, just run-of-the-mill asswipe Confederatism, that’s all.
raven
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Beats me, I’ve been railing for months to no avail.
kc
Why are liberal bloggers falling over themselves to excuse that remark? You know goddamn well if Dumbya had said you’d be squawking like crazy.
It wasn’t a terrible offense against womankind, but Obama shouldn’t have said it (even though it’s true!) and at least he had the smarts to recognize it and the decency to apologize for it, unlike most of his fucktarded cheerleaders.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t think I have.
gocart mozart
I never understood what Bill the Cat ever saw in Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
During the 1980s, I only knew Jeane Kirkpatrick as Bill the Cat’s girlfriend;
SatanicPanic
@Chris: They are all googly-eyed for Putin when I don’t see that guy paving the way for any liberal democracies.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@schrodinger’s cat: I hope you’re joking: Jeane Kirkpatrick
Valdivia
Speaking of Communism: The Scandal the crazies were waiting for: J-Z and Beyonce got a cultural visa to go to Cuba. You know they’re going to say this is corruption. Sigh. And just when the important stuff is happening this week: guns, immigration. It never stops.
Another Halocene Human
@Suffern ACE: Do go on.
reflectionephemeral
Key missing factoid: Pinochet inaugurated his barbarous reign of murder and torture with a successful coup AGAINST A GOVERNMENT THAT HAD BEEN A DEMOCRACY FOR AT LEAST HALF A CENTURY.
It doesn’t matter what you think of Salvador Allende’s economic program, he wasn’t shooting people in the streets, as even The Economist has pointed out.
Anyone who utters a word in defense of Pinochet shows that they are utterly indifferent to democracy and human rights.
Edited after posting because I felt like it.
Omnes Omnibus
@kc:
Pretty much everything I have seen said that Obama had screwed up – either minorly or majorly.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@raven: I raised an objection to another commentor’s posting of some Saudi beheading film. Thought it cheapened his site and the discourse and said so. I might add I was exceptionally respectful about it.
He emailed me and oh boy did the mask came off. He’s neither a gentleman, nor an academic who would be interested in any sort of legitimate discourse involving different views. Which is a legitimate stance to take – it’s his site. He can run it however he likes. But I gotta confess I was a bit shocked at the nastiness.
I hope it’s an age related thing because I would NOT have wanted to serve under a guy who’s that easily offended.
Another Halocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: Everybody knows it’s only appropriate to discuss the ‘tingle in the leg’ that powerful male conservative pols give you … or to bitch that Dem women aren’t ugly enough to call them man-hating lesbian bitch sluts and have it stick.
Michele C
So, no one in the U.S. is talking about her “legacy” in dealing with Ireland.
raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: I really struggled when I read his “I got spit on” piece one vets day. Maybe he did, I’ve just never been able to imagine a hard-core commie killer turning into a mass of jelly when some flower child ran up and spit in their face in the airport.
eta
He continuously posts false accusations about Kerry, African Americans in Vietnam and a number of issues close to my heart. I’d correct him and he’d admit he was wrong and just drive on with his bullshit.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Ivan Ivanovich Renko: A year ago I would have said – and meant it – that he was one of the last sane Republicans standing. Didn’t agree with a lot of what he said, would say so, he’d reply thoughtfully. He had some good points. Not game-changers, but good points. He was interested in give and take with those who weren’t on his side. At least it seemed that way. In retrospect I may have been wrong about that.
The Trayvon Martin murder – and that the media didn’t give his killer a 100% get-out-of-jail free card – sent him over the fucking edge. He lost his shit completely after that, and you were either 100% on-board with the Confederacy or you were fucking out the door.
MTiffany71
I had nothing nice to say about the man when he was alive, so I see no good reason to start lying about him now that he is dead.
SatanicPanic
@Valdivia: They were at Obama’s hip-hop BBQ. I don’t know why they blew their cover by taking pictures. Clearly they were there on orders from the Kenyan Dictator himself.
Suffern ACE
@Another Halocene Human: ok. The Isle of Man and if we’re being honest, Malta and Cyprus. I think that’s all.
askew
@Valdivia:
Well, I guess neglect isn’t that bad. At least he isn’t promoting dictators.
And it sounds like Carter was one of the better U.S. presidents towards Latin America though that isn’t saying much. Just imagine how much better the world would be if Carter got a 2nd term.
Chris
@bemused:
Of course. If they’re conservative, it means they won’t challenge the broader social order and you’ll still get to be lord of the castle in your own home.
@patroclus:
I flipped through a foreign policy book recently that dwelled on Kennedy’s “Alliance for Progress” attempts in Chile. Apparently, the big idea was to use the Christian-Democratic Party to promote what he saw as a Chilean version of his New Frontier programs back home. And his partners in the endeavor were… the Catholic Church and a group of American businessmen who were supposed to help out by bringing the needed development to the area.
No mention of unions or any other populist institutions. No attempt to co-opt the moderate left as was done in, say, France after World War Two. Apparently, the plan was to throw all of America’s support behind the existing economic and religious elites, and… just sort of trust them all to do the right thing and turn Chile into an American-style modern society. But with none of the demagogues and populist that agitated, pushed, and forced America to become that way.
I don’t know exactly how the project fell apart, but I cannot say I’m surprised that it did.
Omnes Omnibus
@Michele C: It comes up in the Hearts of Iron thread that is down a couple of floors.
schrodinger's cat
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Not joking, I knew she was John Bolton’s hero and ambassador of some sort in the Reagan administration but not much else. I was a kidlet during the Reagan administration.
raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Xin Loi mothefuckers!
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Also too, she was one of the ur-neocons.
SiubhanDuinne
Only slightly O/T: you know you’ve lived a good life if WBC pickets your funeral.
Well done, Mr. Ebert. Well done.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
You would probably win the bet. As I posted in an earlier thread, the British government despised Kirkpatrick for her obstructive role following the Argentine invasion of the Falklands:
And that’s the diplomatic version of what the British government really thought about Kirkpatrick.
AA+ Bonds
. . . I guess that’s one way to characterize throwing people out of airplanes . . . paving the way!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: “She appears to be one of America’s most reliable own-goal scorers: tactless, wrong-headed, ineffective and a dubious tribute to the academic profession.”
Gotta love Nicholas Henderson.
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
She has the same disorder. Her boyfriend told me she’s growing carrots in pots on the fire escape. Carrots in pots. Clearly she’s craving gritty vegetables.
Mayken
@schrodinger’s cat: gag! Should not have for out of the boat! Yikes!
Chris
@Mandalay:
British Conservatives, having supported bloody, antidemocratic, right-wing dictators the whole world over in the name of realpolitik and anticommunism, are shocked to find that some of their American allies feel exactly the same way and have no compunctions about throwing them under the bus in the name of “realism.”
In other news, gambling at Rick’s casino.
Mandalay
@Valdivia:
Well you could see it that way through rose tinted spectacles, but it would be more accurate to say that Reagan’s views on the Falklands were ignored and dismissed by Thatcher once hostilities had begun:
Tom Q
@Amir Khalid: Since nobody elose seems to have answered you: I believe the original “…but he’s OUR son of a bitch” was attributed to FDR about Somoza.
Baud
Really OT, but good news from TPM:
patroclus
@Chris: It fell apart because JFK got killed and LBJ removed Goodwin from his LATAM post and made him a speechwriter only and then LBJ got into several snits (Panama, the Dominican Republic) about the Latins and basically decided to scrap the whole trade policy and engage in militarism instead thereby setting the stage for an even more aggressive Nixon and Kissinger policy.
Yeah, the alianza para progreso wasn’t a great policy and, in Chile and elsewhere, it involved buddying up to existing power elites in ways that could be described as imperialistic capitalism trickle down, but it wasn’t exactly a CIA-sponsored coup either. It wouldn’t have resulted in mass disappearances, unchecked rampant torture and the destruction of all democratic institutions as the Pinochet coup did.
American intervention in Latin America is kind of like a bull chasing a fox into a china shop. Yeah, maybe, the fox is dangerous, but maybe it won’t be, and yeah, maybe it’s good that the fox is chased out, but the bull, in throwing his weight around, is gonna break a lot of china and there are going to be a lot of broken dishes and unintended consequences that the locals are gonna have to slowly try to repair (until the next time the bull decides to show up).
jl
I remember reading that Kirkpatrick was trained as an historian. But I also remember seeing clips of her speeches during the Reagan years where she explicitly mocked history as an explanatory factor in causing unrest in Central America.
That left a bad impression.
I was still in college, decidering whether I should or should not follow the Path of the Dudebro when all this went on, so did not pay much attention to either in real time.
AA+ Bonds
@jl:
It’s one of the ways that reaction to Marx distorted the discipline: we now have a whole raft of historians who are ideologically committed to trumpeting the practical uselessness of their profession.
AA+ Bonds
@Mandalay:
I’d put it this way: the Reagan administration didn’t care enough to lift a finger and that worked out just fine for Maggie. It was at worst a cocktail party snub as far as she was concerned.
DFS
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: Pat Lang is very much worth reading on a narrow range of subjects as relates to certain areas of foreign policy and the intelligence community. Otherwise, yeah, he is a relentlessly un-Reconstructed crackhead loon.
Chris
@patroclus:
Sure, it was way better than what LBJ/Nixon got us – I just don’t see how he expected the alliance for progress thing to work long term without including at least some of the left in the process.
slag
Oh go fuck yourself. Asshole.
ruviana
@jl: Political scientist, which is what I remember. She would’ve had to overlook a whole fuckton of Latin American history if she’d been an historian, but her poli sci ideas fit right into some of their favorite themes.
AA+ Bonds
@patroclus:
I think that it was damned from the beginning because of the Bay of Pigs and the aid to Somoza on one hand – inviting distrust of any claimed shift in the application of the Monroe Doctrine – and on the other hand, absolute impossibility that land reforms would ever succeed under the Alliance plan.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@AA+ Bonds:
Now if only we could get neoliberal economists to follow that trend…
jl
@AA+ Bonds: OK, that is good to know. It is disturbing, but it explains a lot.
I had just finished reading a book on the history of El Salvador and land reform, listing the problems for the poor that went back 100 years. Things were ugly even way back then. ‘Liberal’ land reform resulted in mass confiscation of poor people’s land, and turned them into a agricultural day laborers. Had things like Revolt of the Right Hand (or was it Black Hand?). Anyway, lots of judges who signed crooked land titles that gave the land to rich plutocrats as a result of obscure liberalized free market property rights reforms got their hands chopped off. This was in late 19th century, IIRC.
And then watched a documentary of Reagan foreign policy with a clip of Kirkpatrick ridiculing the nothing that events aaalll the way back, 20, 50, 100 years ago could explain any thing about the unrest that was happening there in the 1970s and 1980s. I rmember the smug self-righteous smirks and leers on her face as she said it.
And then I read (or maybe documentary said) that she was trained as an historian. Unbelievable. And scary, that loons like this were in charge of things and so many people’s lives depended on what they decided to do.
Trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
No kidding. As a backhanded compliment, this has to rank pretty high. I suspect Roger’s pleased.
jl
@ruviana:
You are probably right, Wikipedia says her major was political science. I guess I remembered wrong.
But, I also remember reading stuff that was hot for awhile by a neoliberal economist named de Soto who said giving poor property rights and solving informational asymmetries would Solve All Problems for the poor in developing world.
I think the guy meant well, but I wonder whether he knew that his prescription could be characterized as a repeat of the late 19th century neoliberal program in El Salvador that resulted in crooked land transactions that ripped off mass quantities of peasants.
I remember reading that, regardless of some of his other good ideas, and apparent good intentions, de Sotos attempt to turn property rights and information to do progressive work in low income countries did not turn out well in practice.
So, people like Kirkpatrick are right, I guess. History is useless and tells you nothing. /snark.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s unpopular here, too.
I’m sort of amazed. Media and conservatives sold a plan to tax working people more while cutting rich people’s taxes, and no one is buying it!
I think they ran into the fact that they’ve been indiscrimately ranting about taxes for 30 years, so all people heard was “your taxes are going up”
Tone in DC
@SiubhanDuinne:
The poor guy died OF CANCER. With half his jaw missing.
But the Phelps Hater Brigade felt the need to do this.
They cannot continue to call that a Baptist church. They should name it something a bit more appropriate – Philistines R Us.
Roger Moore
@jl:
It sure is if you follow the typical Conservative pattern of ignoring the parts that tell you things you don’t want to know. There are none so ignorant as those who refuse to learn.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tone in DC:
The Philistines Anti-Defamation League is holding on line 1, they’d like to have a word with you.
Good luck with catching grief from the Assholes Do To Have A Useful and Proper Function Society on your next attempt.
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
Maybe she did start to learn towards the end. From a Salon article titled Mugged by reality…
Then again, the fact that even she rejected the “preemptive war” nonsense really says more about the lunacy of the Bush Administration than it does about a kinder, gentler Kirkpatrick.
Mandalay
@Tone in DC:
You certainly have a point, but I would point out that there has also been much gratuitous rejoicing and gloating on BJ about the news that an elderly woman suffering from dementia has just died, and also over the ten year anniversary of the death of Michael Kelly. We have even had posters generously offering to go and piss on their graves.
Hatred is an equal opportunity employer, and both sides do it.
But I guess it’s OK when YOUR side does it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Wait until Cheney dies.
Kay
@Baud:
It should be interesting, because I’m sure both LA and OH promised tax cuts to the wealthiest.
They actually do need revenue.
Now that the genius plan to charge everyone more for the things that they purchase is dead, who fills the hole? Not the Job Creators, surely.
I think they have to go the Romney Route and raise “fees”.
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe they will start printing their own money. Ohio Bitcoins!
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: @Baud:
Bitcoins, rare coins. Ohio is into all coins.
accidentalfission
@raven: For some reason I can’t comment right now on Pat Lang’s blog. What I wanted to say was this:
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mandalay: I’m glad you’re willing to come clean and admit that the Phelps Brigade is Republican property. So many shy away from admitting to GOP ownership of those guys, but we all know the score. Fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree and all that.
Well, thanks for clearing up any confusion.
MariedeGournay
@slag: Missing Achillies’ sweet, sweet love?
Mandalay
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I reached the conclusion long ago that thinking like that is not rational, useful, productive or worthwhile.
I hope that you will eventually realize that as well. Enjoy your pathetic toilet hatred as best you can in the meantime.
Bob Westal
@patroclus: Although I’m very critical myself of people who minimize, excuse, or ignore Castro and Che’s crimes, I do think putting him into the same category as Pinochet is seriously incorrect, if only as a matter of numbers. If I recall right (I did one quick search right now, but I don’t have time for a lot of research), the summary executions that happened were scores of alleged traitors and war criminals, with the emphasis being on “alleged” of course. While Pinochet was responsible for literally thousands of murders and tortures of people alleged to be communist, or something similar.
While, obviously, even one summary execution is too many, I think we can say too things. 1. Left-liberals who are opposed to the death penalty WITH trial should not be huge fans of Che and Castro. (Oh, by the way, they were also mad that the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully, so there goes anti-nuclear peacniks)
2. In the human right criminal category, however, they are complete pikers compared to any of the 1970s/1980s fascists who ran so much of Latin America back then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Yes, you have established your moral superiority on this in several threads. Sometimes hatreds exist for a reason. Sometimes they are the result of an irrational prejudice. I think one should be able to recognize the difference. I am normally of the “be polite about the dead” school, but there are a few people for whom I am prepared to make an exception. Thatcher is one. Kelly, while I don’t celebrate his death, is someone over whom I would waste no tears either.
celticdragonchick
@Mandalay:
I read later that we were giving the British Navy brand new AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles that could engage from any angle, including head on. They were being delivered to the fleet from Raytheon for immediate use. You can be sure that Argentina was not getting bleeding-edge hardware straight from the manufacturer.
Chris
@Bob Westal:
Emphasis correct. I think a ton of the people executed by Castro and Che were actually fellow revolutionaries who were “exposed” after the revolution took Havana, just in time to remove anyone who might contest Castro’s right to eternal absolute leadership. All the higher-up members of Batista’s government had already jumped ship for Miami by the time the capital fell, hadn’t they?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mandalay: My only concern is for the families of those deceased who will share their eternal space with the esteemed baroness. Since she was not universally beloved by all who squirmed under her iron fist, I’m merely trying to anticipate the worst and make sure the grounds remain free of the urine that some folks will no doubt try to christen her final resting place with.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
I gave my opinion, but if you feel the need to interpret my comments that way then perhaps you actually have doubts about your own moral code.
I just find comments about pissing on graves really pathetic and juvenile, particularly when they are alongside other comments berating the “haters” on the other side.
There is plenty to say about Thatcher, but if the best someone has got is to rant about constructing a sewage system for pissing on her grave then they don’t really have anything to say at all.
Some folks here just enjoy pretending to be outraged over things that they don’t really care about at all.
Well in that case you are clearly trying to establish your moral superiority over me, because I don’t feel that way at all. I just don’t derive glee from anyone’s death, and I don’t think it is healthy to do so, and doubly so when the dead person doesn’t really even mean anything to you in your own life. I find it creepy.
Mandalay
@Omnes Omnibus:
More scathing wit from the man about Kirkpatrick…
Henderson wasted his talents as an ambassador. He should have been a stand up comic.
Violet
Only one ‘n’ in her name: Jeane.
Mandalay
@celticdragonchick:
Margaret Thatcher confirms your story:
Apparently America’s generosity was due to the insistence of Caspar Weingberger, and despite the objections of Jeane Kirkpatrick.
The US position over the Falklands was a disjointed mess.
Suffern ACE
@celticdragonchick: the French had supplied the Argentinians with Exocets. They Brits only had 6 sidewinders.
mclaren
The only thing that really made both of those sadistic creeps’ panties wet was watching people suffer. Torture under a foreign dictator? Or busting unions and throwing tens of thousands of people out of work into privation and humiliation?
Didn’t matter. They loved watching people suffer. That was the bottom line for both Kirkpatrick and Thatcher.
Both of ’em remind me of those women who write marriage proposals to serial killers who are doing life in prison.
mclaren
@Mandalay:
Dude, debating Omnes Omnibus is like reading Aeschylus to a cage full of hyenas.
It insults the memory of Aeschylus, and annoys the hyenas.
mclaren
@Mandalay:
Fuck rational, productive and useful. Goldman Sachs is rational, productive and useful. It’s also a bloodsucking vampire squid with its snout clamped to the face to the body politic.
Rational, productive and useful considerations gave us Mutual Assured Destruction and game theory for thermonuclear war. Rational, Productive and useful thinking gave us the Rational Expectations theory of the Chicago School of economics, which wrecked the global economy and plunged hundreds of millions of people worldwide into privation and homelessness and despair.
How about being humane?
How about that, huh?
Suppose we deep six the “rational” shit and start worrying about being kind to one another.
Is that too much to ask?
What the hell happened to basic common human decency?
Fuck rational and productive and the rest of those weasel-words used to cover up crony capitalist con games and the brutalization of the poor by the rich. Let’s give a try at being humane. The humane trumps the rational any day of the week, buckaroo.
mclaren
And incidentally…another drone strike in Pakistan today. 18 dead — 11 of ’em children.
Children.
Revering a mass murder in the Oval Office is also par for the course in establishment media in America circa 2013.
Cue one of the crackpot obots to rush out of the shower and explain to us why Obama murdering 11 children at a shot isn’t really “mass murder”…
Anna in PDX
@raven: I do not always agree with him but this was written by one of his co bloggers, Foresman, and Pat pointed out that he was no fan of either Reagan or Thatcher in the comments.
Redleg
What’s the sample size for Kirkpatrick’s test of hypothesis? One? Jeebus.