If there is a revolution will the corrupt be replaced by a saviour or just another dictator in the making? Column October 31, 2019. 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). Students are paying off their debts for the next 10 to 15 years while people who require medical treatment will too be paying it off for years to come. 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. | 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. Lebanon. 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. 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. Correction, Dec. 19, 2019: This article originally misstated the translation of #RenunciaPiñera as “renounce Piñera” and #ChileDespierta as “Chile … it’s not surprising that the army are acting without a shred of humanity. After taking the advice of America’s conservative economics professors for decades, Chile now has -- according to one survey -- the world’s highest level of income inequality. Practically anything else? Problems in Chile are not a new phenomenon. So all the problems in Chile were purely down to an increase in Metro tickets? The fires may have started in the shadow of the Andes, but you can already smell the smoke up on Wall Street. Other targets were banks and supermarkets. So what’s the craic with this Team Fraytrain anyhow. A demonstrator holds up his hands toward advancing soldiers during a protest as a state of emergency remains in effect in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 20, 2019. 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. | Will Bunch. I want more living history! The problems in Chile don’t look like ending anytime soon. I’m just a travel writer who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. ... Chile November 2, 2019. What started as students jumping turnstiles and refusing to pay quickly turned nasty. pic.twitter.com/SQ9NoMQC33. Chile has — at least from afar — been heralded as a regional success story for its solid governance and investor-friendly environment. 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. A Worldwide Revolution Is Underway. All are now officially under a state of emergency. 03/11/2019 22/10/2019 by Adam Fraiel. Yet the media still seem to gloss over it. The U.S. is a big part of the problem. When I arrived to discover my Airbnb had cancelled on me, that was an annoyance but it didn’t spoil my day. Share. Just a bunch of kids spitting their dummy out and causing chaos. In recent weeks, Wall Street and other big-money political funders have run to their favorite journalists -- who’ve responded with headlines like Politico’s “Corporate America freaks out over Elizabeth Warren” -- and floated delusional, desperation theories that some benevolent billionaire like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg or some other plutocrat could still enter the 2020 race at 11:58 and somehow save their pampered skins. National Office 147 W. 24th St. 2nd Fl. 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. The country, billed as the most stable in Latin America, has that stability built on a foundation of misery and repression. 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. Chile is just the latest Latin American country to erupt in protests and violence. Iraq. Hong Kong. That evening, with the increase in Metro fares, the poor camel’s back was destroyed. No. What they did over the next three years -- starting with the CIA-backed assassination of a Chilean general in 1970 -- was one of the bloodiest and most morally unconscionable chapters in the history of U.S. foreign relations. “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.”. As with most things travel-related (or is it just me? 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. I arrived on the morning of Friday 18th October 2019. Demonstrators clash with riot police during protests in Valparaiso, Chile, on October 20, 2019. Quick Read; Deep Read ( 7 Min. ) 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. “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. Ecuador. You want an education? 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. A quick search for the hashtags #Chileprotests, #ChileResiste and #ChileDespierto reveal a level of brutality that will turn your stomach. 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. Share page. On October 18, 2019, Chilean society exploded as it had never done, unleashing social energy accumulated by decades … What set off this political conflagration? Its free-market model has driven down poverty from 31 percent in 2000 to 6.4 percent in 2017, according to the World Bank, and made the copper-rich Andean nation the highest-ranked countryin Latin Ameri… And yet this nonviolent revolution still has America’s billionaire class in a total panic. Those teenagers who were protesting? “This is just another cycle. Why was I in Chile? And what about Chile’s rival for income inequality, the United States? Medical care? The U.S. is a big part of the problem. Those who’ve spent time in Chile or written about it say the sense of inequality and resentment is palpable. The media’s obsession with running with the ‘fare increase’ line is insulting to the Chilean people and their current plight. The media continue to report the use of tear gas and water cannons while the soldiers continue to shoot and beat their own countrymen. Its magnitude was 9.6 degrees on the Richter logarithmic scale, which has a maximum of 10. Live rounds being fired at protestors, bloody lifeless bodies being dragged by their feet and cars ramming into protestors. New York, NY 10011 Phone: 212-627-2994 E-mail: [email protected] » READ MORE: From Baghdad to Kyiv to Haiti, people everywhere are rising up. This means more curfews. A subway fare hike that -- converted to U.S. money -- amounts to less than 5 cents. As the helicopter flys over Santiago, Chile, people appear to stretch for more than a mile. If the investment goes bad, bye bye pension money. They already get screwed, receiving around 30% of their working wage when they retire which is widely believed to be the cause of the rise of elderly suicide. If you watch the majority of mainstream news then that would appear to be the case. 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. Chilean people protest against the government of President Sebastián Piñera on December 20, 2019 in Santiago, Chile. This is in reference to Pinochet. 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. It was a fantastic opportunity which I’d been looking forward to for months. 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. 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. The United States. 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. At first, students began protesting by hopping turnstiles and dodging the fare, chanting: “Evading, not paying, another way of fighting!” But things escalated. Oct. 21, 2019 at 7:10 a.m. EDT “It’s not about 30 pesos. In 1970, the people of Chile chose a more socialist path and democratically elected a left-wing president, Salvador Allende. The Chilean revolution. Out of the top 30 wealthiest countries in the world, Chile ranks number 1 for inequality. The biggest fires are always started by the tiniest spark. Wow. Who knows. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. 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. The final straw for me came when the fires reached 1 block from my hostel. I earned my new nickname of Forrest Gump as I once again managed to find myself in one of history’s seminal moments. No wonder this nation’s billionaire oligarchs are so worried about the 2020 elections. » READ MORE: Unbelievable: Failed smears only make Elizabeth Warren stronger as new Dem front-runner | Will Bunch. During that time I got a crash course on the current problems in Chile mixed in with a poignant history lesson. That’s in addition to social unease over fewer opportunities for Chile’s browner-skinned indigenous and mixed-race people, often packed into outskirts barrios. The protests quickly spread to other cities – Concepcion, Valparaiso, Antofagasta, Chillan, Punta Arenas, Talca, Temuco and Valdivia. As I said before, the price hike on Metro tickets was the final straw. 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 … — Tamara Qiblawi (@tamaraqiblawi) October 18, 2019 It was the straw that broke the camel's back. 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. Beaten, kicked and dragged through the streets by fully armed military personnel. 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. Listen. Hundreds of Chilean teenagers have spent the last few weeks protesting the country's version of the SAT. 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. ), things rarely go to plan. November 6, 2019 Two ways to read the story. close. I’m no Chilean historian, nor do I claim to be an expert on the country. What’s different is the inequality in Chile. A ukulele is the perfect instrument for travellers. By itself this isn’t unusual around the world – in the UK students carry their student debt for years after qualifying and the US healthcare system is madness. The government of President Sebastián Piñera responded with a repressive crackdown, then a retreat of rolling back the fare, announcing new measures for the working class, and lifting a curfew. Chileans debate in the streets in 'first act of revolution' to determine their future. Almost all ‘public’ services in Chile are privatised. 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. 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. (Marcelo Hernandez / Getty Images) Our new issue, “Failure Is an Option,” is out now. An average shop will cost the equivalent of a European shopping trip. Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and small outbreaks in Argentina are all hotspots. It would be quite the story if this were just happening in Chile, but people are rising up everywhere -- over inequality, austerity measures that only target the poor and working class, and government corruption that robs everyday folks for the benefit of elites. I’d booked a 3-week session where I’d learn the fine art of goat farming. Throw in a recent 20% hike in energy prices and you get a clearer picture of the problems in Chile. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Problems in Chile 2019 – A Chilean revolution? Picture taken November 2, 2019. Blame seemed to be placed firmly on the protestors with absolutely ZERO coverage of the extreme, horrific response from the military. Problems in Chile are not a new phenomenon. 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