Economy, finance, and budgets The turmoil in Chile satisfies old Marxists who, always looking for the next revolution, have set their hopes on Santiago. What set off this political conflagration? ... Chile November 2, 2019. They don’t see this as a mass awakening… just another part of the endless cycle of corruption, outrage and repeat that plagues Latin America. November 6, 2019 Two ways to read the story. Problems in Chile are not a new phenomenon. In 1960 Chile was shaken by the largest earthquake ever recorded before. Those teenagers who were protesting? Just like Puerto Rico.Just like Hong Kong.Just like Chile.The people of Lebanon refuse to give up.This is Day 10. pic.twitter.com/8YTWfqDLfG. The U.S. is a big part of the problem. New York, NY 10011 Phone: 212-627-2994 E-mail: [email protected] 26 October 2019. Its magnitude was 9.6 degrees on the Richter logarithmic scale, which has a maximum of 10. The media’s obsession with running with the ‘fare increase’ line is insulting to the Chilean people and their current plight. Santiago Gets Louder 2019, 06/10/2019. The country, billed as the most stable in Latin America, has that stability built on a … “Beyond data,” wrote Francisca Skoknic in The Nation, “the feeling among a large swath of the Chilean population is that rich people get special privileges and that private companies with high profits control their day to day life.”. Some on social media claim that “Latin America is finally waking up” to the corruption and social inequality, yet speaking with locals on the ground you get a different, more pessimistic response. The Chilean revolution. Another under-the-radar American adviser to Chile was University of Virginia Nobel laureate and ultra-conservative James Buchanan, who (as chronicled in Nancy MacLean’s remarkable Democracy in Chains) developed an economic regime of “individual liberty” that favored individuals who were very wealthy and, even more incredibly, was first developed as a stealth way for Southerners to fight school integration after 1954′s Brown v. Board of Education. » READ MORE: From Baghdad to Kyiv to Haiti, people everywhere are rising up. Those who’ve spent time in Chile or written about it say the sense of inequality and resentment is palpable. Yet on Saturday, more than a million people flooded Santiago’s Plaza Italia for the largest protest yet, and no one knows how all of this will end. 2 on that list? That was almost literally true in 2011 when an unknown street vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire to protest corruption and government harassment, and triggered the Arab Spring, a series of uprisings that roiled an entire region and inspired movements like Spain’s Indignados and Occupy Wall Street. The media continue to report the use of tear gas and water cannons while the soldiers continue to shoot and beat their own countrymen. The headquarters of the energy company, the one that had just hiked up the prices 20% (despite already making millions in profits), was also set ablaze. That was too close for comfort so I left the next day. ), things rarely go to plan. Listen. Santiago – Chile has been gripped by protests against high living costs and inequality for nearly two weeks. Practically anything else? Hundreds of Chilean teenagers have spent the last few weeks protesting the country's version of the SAT. Almost all ‘public’ services in Chile are privatised. And yet this nonviolent revolution still has America’s billionaire class in a total panic. Problems in Chile 2019 – A Chilean revolution? The fare hike touched off much deeper anxieties about income inequality in a nation often held up as an economic success story because of its rapidly rising gross domestic product (GDP), yet has seen much of that wealth flow to a narrow sliver at the top. Just as a tourist, prices in Chile are expensive! (Marcelo Hernandez / Getty Images) Our new issue, “Failure Is an Option,” is out now. Chile has — at least from afar — been heralded as a regional success story for its solid governance and investor-friendly environment. I’m no Chilean historian, nor do I claim to be an expert on the country. | Will Bunch, Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren, Unbelievable: Failed smears only make Elizabeth Warren stronger as new Dem front-runner | Will Bunch, California residents do not sell my data request. A demonstrator is detained by the police during a protest in Santiago, Chile, Saturday, October 19, 2019. Even the former leaders of the 2006 Penguin Revolution For his sordid role in all of this, Henry Kissinger was investigated, then arrested in handcuffs and flown to The Hague, where he stood trial for crimes against huma ... oops, I’m sorry. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and small outbreaks in Argentina are all hotspots. » READ MORE: Unbelievable: Failed smears only make Elizabeth Warren stronger as new Dem front-runner | Will Bunch. While there have been significant protest movements over income inequality (Occupy Wall Street) and its symptoms (the March for Our Lives, climate strikes, the Women’s March), the last few years have shown that Americans remain a people who pin a lot of our hopes, for better or worse, on the ballot box, not on the street. November 4, 2019 On October 14, 2019 Santiago, Chile erupted in revolution related to an ever-increasing pressure on those struggling just to make ends meet by the rich and powerful of the country. If you watch the majority of mainstream news then that would appear to be the case. When the President announces “We are at war” and that the protestors are “The enemy of the people” (gosh, where’ve I heard that phrase before?) The 4th Democratic debate showed Elizabeth Warren is now a front-runner, ‘September Days’: Inside the movement to bring Hong Kong-style protests to America | Will Bunch, Hong Kong protesters should wave dollar bills, not U.S. flag, so NBA, Trump will pay attention | Will Bunch, From Baghdad to Kyiv to Haiti, people everywhere are rising up. Anti-government demonstrators are sprayed by a police water cannon during a protest in Santiago, Chile, on Saturday.Chile has been facing days of unrest, triggered by a relatively minor increase in subway fares. At first, students began protesting by hopping turnstiles and dodging the fare, chanting: “Evading, not paying, another way of fighting!” But things escalated. Ecuador. Who knows. That evening the people took to the streets and destroyed around 50 Metro stations. What’s different is the inequality in Chile. As fate would have it, I have led this Democratic Revolution in Chile.” Today, Revolución Democrática has become one of the largest parties in Chile. In 2019, as an autumn of popular uprisings erupts around the globe, the most dramatic revolution of the moment is taking place in the shadows of the towering mountains of Chile, where as many as a million people flood the streets of capital city Santiago by day, and harrowing street battles have erupted at night. Demonstrators clash with riot police during protests in Valparaiso, Chile, on October 20, 2019. Kids! Yet the Chilean economy was not strong when “the Chicago boys” held full sway, but it did achieve impressive GDP growth once Pinochet fell out of favor and a period of center-left rule returned some government role to the economy. That’s because you don’t need to fly a helicopter over the streets of Santiago to see that there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. Live rounds being fired at protestors, bloody lifeless bodies being dragged by their feet and cars ramming into protestors. I found a nearby hostel, checked in, finally lay in a comfortable bed and then… and then the country went to s##t! Here at home, a rising cadre of prominent right-wing economists saw not horror in Pinochet’s dictatorship but an opportunity -- a chance to test their radical free-market ideas without hindrance from pesky left-wing politicians or labor leaders who had almost magically disappeared from the scene in Chile. Haiti. But the warm and fuzzy relationship between Washington and the brutal, authoritarian government of Pinochet, who remained in power into the 1990s, allowed for a lesser-known chapter that’s highly relevant for today’s moment of rising unrest. “This is just another cycle. Column October 31, 2019. Yet the media still seem to gloss over it. Why was I in Chile? One recent study found that the top 0.1 percent in Chilean society earn 19.5 percent of the nation’s income, the kind of stat that makes a mockery of “good” GDP numbers. The United States. Just a bunch of kids spitting their dummy out and causing chaos. Chileans debate in the streets in 'first act of revolution' to determine their future. The Milton Friedmans and the James Buchanans of this world were able to get away for decades with their ridiculous theories that freedom for billionaires would eventually trickle down dollars on regular folks -- until the day we woke up and discovered we didn’t even have enough change for the subway. And now, Chile. That’s just a flavour. Oct. 21, 2019 at 7:10 a.m. EDT “It’s not about 30 pesos. Who knows. | Will Bunch. Quick Read; Deep Read ( 7 Min. ) But Allende and his populist reforms weren’t popular with one group: U.S. corporations like ITT, Pepsi and Anaconda Copper, and they leaned heavily on a friend in the White House, Richard Nixon, and his chief foreign policy architect Henry Kissinger, to do something. What started as students jumping turnstiles and refusing to pay quickly turned nasty. The riots were reported on around the world, yet all seemed to lead with the ‘angry teenagers’ headlines. It was a fantastic opportunity which I’d been looking forward to for months. I earned my new nickname of Forrest Gump as I once again managed to find myself in one of history’s seminal moments. “Ninety-seven percent of the people I know in my world are really, really fearful of her,” billionaire Michael Novogratz told Bloomberg (heh) News recently of Warren, but the wealthy acknowledge that every time they attack Warren, Sanders, or their proposals such as a wealth tax to fund social programs like universal prekindergarten, eliminating college debt or universal health care, it only makes the chances for their victory stronger. I’d booked a 3-week session where I’d learn the fine art of goat farming. I do know that people are being brutalised on the streets of Chile and the global media are turning a blind eye. The economists who ran Chile’s economy during the Pinochet era were called “the Chicago Boys” because of their close ties to the University of Chicago and its free-market guru Milton Friedman, who famously said he didn’t see the “evil” in simply giving economic advice to a violent right-wing dictator. This means more curfews. So all the problems in Chile were purely down to an increase in Metro tickets? Share page. If the investment goes bad, bye bye pension money. An average shop will cost the equivalent of a European shopping trip. Thousands of troops were deployed onto the streets, tanks rolled down highways and tear gas was fired like confetti. In 1970, the people of Chile chose a more socialist path and democratically elected a left-wing president, Salvador Allende. Lebanon. No. — Tamara Qiblawi (@tamaraqiblawi) October 18, 2019 It was the straw that broke the camel's back. On October 18, 2019, Chilean society exploded as it had never done, unleashing social energy accumulated by decades … ... Chile, on December 02, 2019. The final straw for me came when the fires reached 1 block from my hostel. Estadio Bicentenario de La Florida, Chile. The people will get angry, small changes will be made then they’ll forget.” They’re the words of multiple older people I spoke to in Chile, Argentina and Brazil. During that time I got a crash course on the current problems in Chile mixed in with a poignant history lesson. The leftist media, in turn, fuel the revolutionary mood by framing the story as a revolt of the poor against neoliberalism—including rule of law and free-market … And so they’re also on the streets in Baghdad, in Port-au-Prince, in Beirut, in Hong Kong, and to some extent in dozens of other nations, in both democracies and dictatorships. President Pinera claims “We are at war against a powerful enemy” while demonising and vilifying the protestors. When I booked my 44-hour bus journey from Asuncion to Santiago I presumed the worst thing to happen would be a numb bum. What these advisers told Pinochet will sound familiar to Americans who’ve watched the parallel rise of the Koch brothers (who also worked closely with Buchanan) after their influence over the GOP here at home: privatization of government programs, from old-age pensions to municipal water, school vouchers, and encouraging private health insurance for those with higher incomes that undermined the medical safety net for the poor. In 2019, as an autumn of popular uprisings erupts around the globe, the most dramatic revolution of the moment is taking place in the shadows of the towering mountains of Chile, where as many as a million people flood the streets of capital city Santiago by day, and harrowing street battles have erupted at night. Americans should be paying a lot closer attention to all of this -- and not just because 50-plus years of U.S. meddling in a capital some 5,000 miles south of Washington have played a key role in getting things to this point. More than a dozen subway stations burned. © 2020 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC Terms of Use/Privacy Policy/California Notice California residents do not sell my data request. Having spent over 2 months in Paraguay I needed to leave to renew my visa, plus I found an awesome sounding host through Worldpackers.com. Demonstrators display flags and banners during a protest against President Sebastian Piñera on Oct. 21, 2019 in Santiago, Chile, as … Correction, Dec. 19, 2019: This article originally misstated the translation of #RenunciaPiñera as “renounce Piñera” and #ChileDespierta as “Chile … I’m just a travel writer who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The quote chosen for this mural was from a speech by the iconic Chilean president Salvador Allende: “Since my youth I have fought against prejudice and obsolete political systems. No wonder this nation’s billionaire oligarchs are so worried about the 2020 elections. it’s not surprising that the army are acting without a shred of humanity. The top 8% earn more than the bottom 60% combined. So what’s the craic with this Team Fraytrain anyhow. The problems in Chile don’t look like ending anytime soon. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Aside from a u-turn on the Metro price increase he refuses to address any of the deeper underlying social issues which led to this tragedy. Wow. The media seem to have misplaced this footage, but luckily with the magic of social media their atrocities are public for all to see. The vivid images we now see on the streets of Santiago -- the daytime throngs and the nighttime hellscape of fire and tear gas haze -- are the inevitable result of a society built upon a foundation of unfairness. It actually turned out to be a lifesaver. You want an education? If there is a revolution will the corrupt be replaced by a saviour or just another dictator in the making? Clearly I wasn’t content with witnessing the collapse of Venezuela, the fall of the Argentinean economy, the biggest forest fire in Amazonian history to name a few. SANTIAGO, Chile – Protests and violence in Chile spilled over into a new day and raged into Sunday night despite the president cancelling a subway fare hike that has prompted violent demonstrations. I was briefly transported to an alternative universe, not the reality-based world where Kissinger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and became the respected 90-something elder of American foreign policy, consulted and revered by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I want more living history! National Office 147 W. 24th St. 2nd Fl. Iraq. The pension system that everyone pays into is used as a slush fund for private investors (3 of the 6 pension companies are owned by American companies). It culminated with history’s original Sept. 11 attack -- a violent American-aided coup on that date in 1973 that led to Allende’s death, the empowerment of military dictator Augusto Pinochet, and a reign of terror in which at least 3,000 and perhaps many more political opponents were murdered or “disappeared,” soccer stadiums became concentration camps for thousands, and many were brutally tortured. Picture of the Andes, but you can already smell the smoke up on Wall.! 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