What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

The suppression of democratic institutions and organized labor among the working class, the promotion of the interests of capital and industry, alliances with business, finance and industry, the promotion of the armed forces--if necessary to the detriment of social programs. This ain't rocket science, you know. Every one of the people i mentioned in my last post were tolerated by or even supported the by the United States, and after World War II, by Central Intelligence in the United States, on the assumption that they were bulwarks against communism, and without regard to the consequences for the people of those nations. In every one of those regimes, people disappeared, dissent was brutally repressed and labor organizations and popular democratic parties outlawed.

The example in Chile is particularly glaring. Salvador Allende was elected in a fair an open election overseen by international observers in 1970. He had received the most votes, but not a majority. In accordance with the constitution, the Chilean congress chose the President from the two highest vote-getters, and by tradition, the one with the most votes. Allende was a self-avowed socialist. General Rene Schneider, an advocate of military professionalism with a hands-off policy toward politics and the government was killed a few days later during a kidnapping attempt. This plot has been ascribed to Central Intelligence. Henry Kissinger doesn't deny such a plan, but only lamely claims he called it off, and that the Chileans involved acted on their own initiative. Knowledgeable observers say that Nixon gave Richard Helms, then the Director of Central Intelligence, carte blanche to get rid of Allende and to screw the economy in order to discredit socialism in South America.

Killing Schneider was widely unpopular, and ruined the plans to set up a military opposition to Allende. Allende governed by an alliance with the Christian Democrats, a center-left party in Chile, and a party which had called for many of economic reforms that Allende intended to promote. At the same time, Allende was obliged to tone down his socialist programs and defer nationalization of some industries to gain Christian Democrat support. He did, however, immediately nationalize the mines and the banks. When Allende nationalized the copper mining industry, the United States cut off foreign aid and economic credits and loan guarantees, so Allende turned to the Soviet Union and China. Nixon's administration began pumping millions of dollars into the opposition to Allende. The United States began a high-pressure campaign to screw the Chilean economy to discredit Allende and socialism.

During the constitutional crisis in 1973, when the Christian Democrats withdrew their support of Allende, and after a failed coup attempt by an armored division, Allende was forced to appoint Augusto Pinochet as army chief of staff. The constitutional crisis deepened, with the Supreme Court denouncing Allende for failing to execute judicial decisions, and for a host of measures which one could allege constituted dictatorial behavior on his part. Allende called upon workers, farmers and students to support his government, and then called for a plebiscite in September, 1973, to support his program. He was to deliver a speech to the nati0n in September to explain his program and the plebiscite, but he never gave the speech, because the army under Pinochet launched a coup.

One can easily argue that Allende sought to create a left-wing dictatorship, but the implication is inescapable that business leaders, backing Pinochet's right-wing coterie of military officers, did not want the people to vote in a plebiscite on Allende's programs (especially the bankers and the mine owners, whose businesses had been nationalized). With the army closing in on the presidential palace, and with the sounds of gunfire clearly audible in a radio broadcast during which Allende said farewell to Chile, he took his own life.

The subsequent history of Chile for more than 15 years was the story of a classic military right-wing dictatorship. Pinochet became the leader of what was unabashedly referred to as the Government Junta of Chile. From 1974 until 1990, he was the President of the Republic. Under Pinochet, more than 3,000 people simply disappeared. More than 2,000 of those are believed to have been murdered outright by the Junta. More than 31,000 people were arrested on political charges, and many of those were tortured. Nearly 1500 people were exiled. Central Intelligence under Richard Helms, and with the approval of Kissinger propped up Pinochet's regime, and helped his intelligence services to harry the exiles all over the globe. Pinochet openly and with pride said that he was supported by Central Intelligence and that his measures were necessary to save Chile from communism.

Pinochet became a crony of Margaret Thatcher, cementing his relationship by allowing RAF aircraft to refuel in Chile during the Falkland Islands War. He was so often a guest of Mrs. Thatcher that Tony Blair sarcastically referred to the Tories as the "party of Pinochet." While Pinochet was in England for medical treatment in 1998, he was arrested and held pending extradition on a Spanish warrant, for the torture and murder of Spanish citizens during his regime. He was eventually released on medical grounds without being handed over to Spanish authorities.

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The case with Rafael Trujillo is similar, although earlier. He took over the Dominican Republic in the late 1920's, and made himself "president for life" in the 1930s, finally being toppled by a coup in 1960. When the Dominican Republic fell into political chaos in the mid-1960s, and it looked as though a left wing government would take over, Lyndon Johnson sent in the Marines.

In the 1909, with Nicaragua still a candidate for a canal to link the Caribbean and the Pacific, and under pressure from American business interests, the United States sent the Marines to Nicaragua, where they were to remain until 1933. In the 1920s, Augusto Sandino (hence, the Sandinistas) lead a popular revolt against the conservative government and the Marines who propped them up. He basically wanted the population to grow their own food before they grew bananas, sugar cane, pineapples and coffee for the gringos. He also had a rather hilarious and pathetic spiritualist and "indio-racial" program which made him appear enough of a crackpot that he could get little foreign support. With the Great Depression, though, the United States could no longer afford to keep the Marines in Nicaragua, and so they were withdrawn in January, 1933. The country was then allegedly policed by the National Guard, which had American officers. The Nicaraguan head of the National Guard was Anastasio Somoza Garcia. He, along with the President, Sacassa, and Sandino were the three power brokers in Nicaragua. Sandino came to an agreement with Sacassa, but Somoza did not trust him, so, in late 1933, Sandino was captured by the National Guard when he went to Managua under a safe-conduct pass from President Sacassa at the invitation of Somoza. He was tortured, and in February, 1934, he was murdered by the National Guard, along with hundreds of men, women and children in his agricultural colony in the North.

Somoza did not have any use for President Sacassa, either, and forced him to resign in 1936, himself becoming President. During World War II, the government seized the property of German nationals in Nicaragua, and sold it to the Somozas at ridiculously low prices, making the Somozas the largest landowners in Nicaragua. Somoza established the National Liberal Party (i expect that now you and Okie will declare that he is a leftist), and under U.S. pressure not to run for President, he used a series of puppets in the office of President while he continued to accumulate land and wealth. None of this bothered U.S. businessmen one bit, because he was selling them the bananas, coffee, rum and sugar they wanted. He had the constitution amended to allow him to run for President despite opposition from Harry Truman, and was assassinated in 1956. He was succeeded by his son Luis. Luis was the President until his death in 1967, while his brother Anastasio was the head of the National Guard. The Nicaraguans referred to Anastasio the younger as "the last Marine." The elder Somoza was the tinpot dictator to whom FDR referred when he said: "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Just as with Pinochet, Trujillo, Marcos and a host of others, the United States looked the other way while supporting bastards like this because they were seen as a bulwark against communism. After the death of Luis Somoza, his brother Anastasio ruled Nicaragua behind a front of puppet Presidents while continuing to command the National Guard. The Sandinistas were organized in 1963, and in 1979 finally drove the Somozas from Nicaragua.

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Leaving aside the idiocy of trying to claim that Hitler and the NSDAP were left-wing, the tale of right-wing dictatorships is so long and so wide-spread, that left-wing dictatorships pale in comparison. But i have no illusions that you and Okie will will recognize this. I fully expect this to be ignored, and for the pair of you to continue to attempt to peddle this idiotic claim.

I would think that Franco and the Greek genrals are another nice - and easily to re-read as your examples (thanks for that!!!) , Set - example.

But since I also agree with your expectation ...

Yeah, Walter, there's not much chance that it will sink in with them. The Argentine Junta is another such example as the Greek Colonels. My sister was living in Athens in the early 1970s, and there were just some things that you didn't say or do on the street, because the fear was everywhere.

Juan Peron in Argentina is another classic case of a right-wing dictator, but since he originally ran on a labor ticket, you can bet your bottom dollar that the conservatives loons in this thread will brand him a left-wing dictator.

I sincerely think that in South America a 'labour ticket' with leading politicans isn't much more than another banana label ...

Yeah, they like to call themselves liberals, too.

Setanta, you posted what these various dictatorships have done. You have not posted what it is that determines whether these dictatorships were left or right.

Again, how do you tell whether a dictatorship is left or right on the political spectrum?

That is totally convincing, ican. Great work!

What did he say? LOL

It is hardly my fault that you are unable to understand what i posted in plain and simple language. Noting that all dictatorships have things in common does not constitute evidence that all dictatorships are "left-wing." It is goofy assumptions such as that, and an assumption that correlation is equivalent to causation, not to mention your rambling, over-the-top and often incomprehensible posts which lead most people here to dismiss you as a nutbag.

Setanta, you need to actually analyze the policies of the guys you are branding as right wingers, to see if they actually are. Under your guidelines, Obama is probably a right winger, but most people know better. Just because somebody opposes a communist, or a socialist, does not preclude the very real possibility and even liklihood that they are also some variation of a leftie or socialist themselves. It is not at all uncommon for socialists, communists, or fascists to have battles among themselves. I think we have provided ample evidence that Nazis and fascists were leftists, by comparing their philosophies and policies to the left vs right scale of things. Remember, the measurement is being made according to left vs right, in the context as we understand them now, here in the United States.

Note, Setanta has accused of ignoring some of his examples. I think some of these have already been addressed on previous pages of this thread, but we can do so again. I have been sort of out of pocket the last few days, but in a few days will be more able to spend more time to address specific dictators, such as Pinochet.

A couple of points about this for now, however, one important one is whether fascism is classified left or right, because alot of the bad guys are somewhat fascist like, and if you actually look at their beliefs and policies, they are definitely of the leftward type. Another point, just because the U.S. has supported some guy in another country does not prove he is left or right, it merely means that we may view him more friendly to our side or our interests at that particular point in history for varied reasons, but foreign policy makes for strange bedfellows, and I would think that anybody should know this. Also, if a leftie is overthrown in a country, it cannot be assumed it was orchestrated by someone on the right. And nationalism or militarism cannot be assigned to the left or right, that is a myth that can be dispelled easily, and I did that a few posts ago. So using that as a measure of left vs right, forget it.

okie, We also have ample evidence that you don't know what you're talking about most of the time. So the real question is, where do "you" go from here?

By the standards of virtually every other country in the world, Mr. Obama and the Democrats are right-wing. It is only the hysteria of reactionaries in the the United States which brands them as dangerous socialists.

You haven't provided any reliable evidence that the NSDAP and the Fascisti were left-wing. Ican, for Christ's sake, is using dictionary definitions to support his case. It may be news to you, but Merriam-Webster is not a source for accurate or detailed historical information. It has been pointed out to you by both me and by Walter that Hitler and the NSDAP had the support of right-wing business interests in the attempt to take over the Reichstag. Hitler originally ran for the office of President, losing to Hindenburg. Political campaigns in Europe have never been as expensive as they are in the United States, and definitely not as expensive as they are today, but they aren't free. The "smokestack barons" of the Ruhr supported Hitler and the NSDAP, and for that they were rewarded with lucrative government contracts once the power of the NSDAP was consolidated. Even when the left-wing parties in Germany had been banned after the Reichstag fire, the NSDAP could not get a majority, and Hitler's government relied on a coalition. His coalition ally was the DNVP, the German National People's Party, the largest far-right party in Germany. That didn't give him enough for the two-thirds majority he needed for the Enabling Act, so for that he turned to von Papen who forged a further coalition with the Centre Party, a center-right Catholic Pary which agreed to vote for the Enabling Act in return for concessions for Catholics in Germany, who still faced institutionalized prejudice in much of Germany.

You write "I think we have provided ample evidence that Nazis and fascists were leftist"--no you haven't, that's been pure ipse dixit. You have simply taken statements made by Hitler and by others and leaned heavily on the words, which is understandable because it is the deeds which matter, and the deeds of the NSDAP and the Fascisti were anything but socialist. In your next post you mention Pinochet and speak of him as though he were a "leftist." That is pure idiocy. Pinochet was backed by the mine owners and bankers whose businesses had been nationalized under Allende's government. There can be absolutely no doubt that Allende was a socialist, and Pinochet was not his choice for army chief of staff. Pinochet was forced on him when his candidate, Prats, was forced from the job.

You further right "Remember, the measurement is being made according to left vs right, in the context that we understand them now, here in the United States. No, it's not. It is only you who stipulate that. On the scale of the rest of the world, there is no left-wing party in the United States. All you're attempting to do is to define terms in a manner which establishes your thesis at the outset. You're begging the question by setting up definitions a priori which will make your argument for you.

When business interests--opposed to organized labor, opposed to government health and safety regulation, opposed to minimum wage legislation, opposed to overtime pay legislation--support a political party or movement, or a military junta, it is not only perfectly reasonable to describe the party or military junta as right-wing, it is sheer idiocy to describe it as anything else.

Pinochet acted as he did because he had the support of the bankers and mine owners whose businesses had been nationalized by Allende. Because Nixon was opposed to the Allende government, American aid had been cut off, and trade measures had been taken to cripple Chile's economy. Pinochet had the support of more businessmen than just the mine owners and bankers, because the American embargo was killing other businesses, too. In Nicaragua, the United States acted to make a protectorate of that nation because revolutionary movements and demands for agrarian reform were hurting American businesses which purchases bananas, pineapple, sugar, rum and coffee there. In particular, Sandino, with his zany political philosophy, much of inspired by the Bolsheviks, was a threat to American business interests because he called for the peasants to grow their own food before they grew bananas, pineapple, sugar cane and coffee for export. There were some Nicaraguan businessmen who benefited from the return to the status quo ante under Somoza after the murder of Sandino, but the principle beneficiaries were large land-owners who produced fruit, sugar, rum and coffee for export, principally to the United States. The Somozas became the largest land-owners in Nicaragua, and it was in the interest of the Somozas, all other large land owners and those in the commodities export trade to get rid of dangerous revolutionaries such as Sandino, and to enjoy good relations with the United States, specifically with United Fruit, the cartel of American companies who bought bananas, pineapple, sugar and coffee from them. It is no accident that tinpot South American dictatorships became known as "banana republics" in the American lexicon. You may be ignorant of these things, but your fathers were not.

You have never addressed the myriad of examples of right-wing dictatorships which i have pointed out to you. You have only begun to do so because you've been backed into a corner.

You just say that "a lot of the bad guys are . . . of the leftward type." You don't offer any evidence, you simply say it. That's called ipse dixit, and it is not kind of argument. It's no argument at all, because you don't have any concrete evidence to support it. Your entire argument that the NSDAP and Hitler were "leftists" is based on a few comments which they made, and by carefully cherry-picking from the NSDAP's 25 points. You totally ignore the actions of Hitler and the NSDAP, and actions speak louder than words. You have completely failed to demonstrate that Hitler and the NSDAP were left-wing, you have only said that you've proven it, declared yourself the winner, and tried to move on from there.

The United States, since the end of the Second World War, has held it's collective nose and supported all kinds of shits like Ferdinand Marcos and Augusto Pinochet because they were anti-communists. All the vague and silly statements you can make about foreign relations and strange bed fellows won't change that. You really understand nothing about traditional socialism if you don't understand that nationalism is anathema to true socialism. There is a reason that the socialists of Europe before the rise of the Bolsheviks referred to their organizations as the First and Second International. World War One spoiled all of that for them, as socialists in France and German rushed to the front to slaughter one another, but anti-nationalism was long a core principle of socialism. The first international was formed when the International Workingman's Association was formed in London in 1864. It held it's first meeting in Geneva in 1866. The first international foundered because Bakunin condemned Marxism, and predicted that it would lead to "statism," was authoritarian, and would produce regimes as brutal and oppressive as those of the ruling classes they sought to topple. Events seem to have proven him right. I'll give a dime to a dollar that you've never even heard of Bakunin, and that in fact, you don't know jack **** about socialism and its history. I'll bet you don't know a goddamned thing about the Holy Alliance and the 1848 socialist uprisings. I'll bet you don't know a goddamned thing about the second international, and the rise of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin. The second international was formed after the first international foundered in the in-fighting between the Marxist wing of socialism and Bakunin's wing, which became known to its detriment as the anarchist wing. The second international was formed in Paris in 1889, and establish headquarters in Brussels in 1900. It was in Brussels that Ulyanov (Lenin) rose to prominence in the second international, and it was there that he took over administrative control of the Russian Workers' Party, declaring his minority to be a majority (Bolsheviki) and his majority opposition to be a minority (Mensheviki). After the disastrous Russo-Japanese War which Russia lost in 1905, the Menshevik's attempted a rebellion in Russia which ended in miserable failure, and Lenin's Bolshevik's took over the Russian Worker's Party.

The First World War destroyed the second international. The socialists had always been anti-nationalist and anti-militarist, but so many of the socialists voted for the war, and so many socialist workers went willingly to the front that international socialism simply dissolved. Jean Jaure, the French socialist leader was assassinated in a street cafe a few days before France declared war on Germany. After the war, an attempt was made to rescusitate the second international, but most socialist parties remained suspicious and the effort never succeeded. The "second and a half" or "two and a half" international was formed, and it limped along until the end of the Second World War when the Socialist International was formed which exists to this day.

I suspect that you don't know anything about the Fabian socialists, either, and that you don't know enough about history to know the origin of the name. Taken all in all, Okie, you and Ican are so profoundly ignorant of history and of principles of political science that it's almost impossible to get the two of you to understand any of this. Ican, for Christ's sake, goes to the dictionary for definitions of communism, fascism and nazism, as though that were an exhaustive and authoritative source. You guys just don't know enough to make these arguments. It is only in the simple-minded and uniformed little worlds of politics such as is dear to the hearts of American reactionaries that ideas such as yours can hold sway. Do you know why they are called left and right? Do you know when they began to be called liberal and conservative, and why?

I doubt it.

Centre-right, some, perhaps.

What I really find unhonest that he totally neglects

a) the comments and "amendments"
b) what influence those 25 actually had on the NSDAp

and mostly

c) the historic background and history of these 25 points (e.g. where and when they originally were developed, other party's programs of that time etc)


[Thanks again, Set, for your essays!]

You're welcome, Walter, and i hope you always know how much i appreciate the detailed information you are able to present on a subject such as this.

Okie and Ican are profoundly ignorant. That doesn't mean they are stupid. If the subject were particle physics, i'd be happy to concede that i am profoundly ignorant of that subject. The problem arises because they let their political ideology do their thinking for them. It's all rather simple-minded really. In their reactionary world, left=bad, right=good. So, they not only have a stake in claiming that all ruthless dictators are/were leftists, they have an equal stake in denying that anyone on the right were ever a ruthless dictator. That's the source of Okie's latest attempt to claim that all the right-wing dictators whom i have named were not really right-wing, but were "leftward." (His rhetoric has drifted from socialist to leftist, and now they are "leftward," whatever the Hell that's supposed to mean.)

Neither of them can reasonably be assumed to be stupid, they just behave stupidly in insisting upon something which they cannot support from the evidence. Neither of them can reasonably be assumed to be an idiot, but they both idiotically insist upon a thesis (left=bad, therefore all dictators must be leftist), and after the fact, attempt to shoehorn what little evidence they are aware of into the thesis.

Once again, simply stated, they are both profoundly ignorant of history and political science. The pair of them wouldn't know a genuine socialist if one came up and bit them in their collective ass. Socialist or communist is the worst thing they can think of to call someone in political terms, so they apply it to all dictators. It is amazing, or would be were it not so pathetic, that Okie has attempted to sustain this silly thesis for so long. In the case of Ican, i'm not at all surprised. He becomes so obsessive with his political rhetoric, that all reason and sense of proportion go right out the window once he's latched on to an idea.

Your problem is that Walter and some others are unwilling to recognize that the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' and 'left' and 'right' are defined differently in Europe than they are in the United States. And they dishonestly refuse to acknowledge that you are using the American definitions rather than the European ones.

But then some seem far more interested in semantics and dismissing or ridiculing anything that is the least bit uncomfortable or difficult for them rather than actually discussing a topic that would be interesting to me and others. You're probably fighting a losing battle there.

Well, okie is talking about Europe, Germany, the German party NSDAP. A program in German, for Germans. Made pre 1919, finished 1920.

That has nothing at all to do how he or you or someone else defines 'left', 'right', 'conservative', 'liberal' today, here, in the USA or Greenland.


This has nothing at all to do with 'semantics' but with how serious and with honesty you approach a historic event.

And what some do here is ... well, a strange view of history, to name it mildly.

Walter, I don't think you can compete with Foxfyre's egocentrism. On the other hand Okie is really not all that representative of Oklahoma, I would opine that Eva contradicts Okie quite nicely.