4 posts tagged “dictator”

Overnight, my quiet little university office has become a microcosm of American-style democracy, with all its dubious back room deals.  The problem has existed for ages and stems from the fact that photocopying is done by a copy request form, which people must submit 24 hours before they want their copies.  This is the way it's been done for years.  Everyone, from the lowliest GTA to the full professor, has to use this system.

Now the GTA's want direct access to the copier, and they're preparing to send their two elected representatives to the department meeting to make a motion that would allow this.  I appreciate the difficulties of their situation.  I was once a GTA, so I know what a pain in the ass it is to plan ahead when you're just trying to keep your head above water.  Half the time, I planned for my classes at 2 am the day of class.  I suspect that's still a popular class planning time.

Despite my sympathies, however, the situation is such that my receptionist would likely be driven insane by everyone doing his/her own copy jobs.  The copier is in her very small office, and with 50 GTA's and lecturers free to come in at any time and make copies, she would essentially become an on-demand copy assistant.  (Because you know who solves things when the copier jams, and who helps people figure out how to make double-sided copies.)  The department Chair is concerned about the money, because copy costs would surely go up.  He's also annoyed that despite a rather dramatic compromise he suggested to the 24-hour rule--an offer for 4-hour turn around on copy requests that I think we can do--the GTA reps are going forward with their motion.

Here's where it gets interesting, and sorry it took so long.  There are only two GTA reps elected to the department committee, plus one lecturer rep.  There are nine faculty reps.  In a pure democracy, we'd have the meeting, everyone would state their cases, and then there would be a vote, with each person voting on their ideals.  The reality is always less pretty, because people invariably vote for their own interests.  Behind the scenes, the GTA's are chatting with some faculty members, trying to bring them over to the Free Access party, so to speak.  The Chair on the other hand, is doing his own back room deals.  In fact, for some of the professors on the committee, he's already offered them keys to the copy room and free access, with the implicit suggestion that they will vote against the GTA motion.

I don't have a vote on the committee (I'm just the recording secretary), but I'm curious to see how it will all play out.  I'm particularly curious, because I know that the Chair has an ace up his sleeve.  He has an e-mail from the Dean that says, "Departmental office procedures are set by the departmental chair.  They are not up for negotiation through departmental committee votes."  In short, the Chair has veto power.  If the vote goes against him, he'll just say, "No."  Until that happens, though, he's perfectly willing to let the GTA's go on believing that they might win the vote.

Does that make us a photocopier dictatorship or a photocopier democracy?

September 11 means something in Chile, too.  That's the date in 1973 that President Salvadore Allende was politically assassinated*, following America's three-year assault on his presidency. Allende was a leftist, a socialist even, and he was determined to diminish the gap between the wealthy and poor in Chile.  Not only were the rich Chileans unhappy with that, the Nixon administration was pretty displeased, too.  A lot of wealthy Americans had investments in Chile and were worried about their profits falling, and conservative factions in the US government were worried about Chile becoming a communist state.

Nixon was intent on destroying Allende's presidency, declaring, "Make the economy scream...to prevent Allende from coming to power or to unseat him."  After failing to get Allende's opponent elected (too bad those were the days before Diebold, eh?), the CIA spent millions of dollars on covert operations to destabilize Allende's administration.

That's right, the US, that alleged bastion of democracy, targeted a democratically elected president, because we didn't agree with his ideology or his political platform.  So...democracy is only good if we like the candidate?  It is true that Allende received campaign money from the KGB, but then, the USSR never claimed to be hip-hip-hooray for promoting democracy abroad.  America has claimed that a lot, most recently when we "democratized" Iraq. *cough*

When it turned out that campaign contributions and parliamentary manipulation weren't enough, however, the US was willing to go to the next step: fomenting a military coup against a democratically elected president in another country.   The CIA waged a propaganda war, trying to build support for Allende's opponents and trying to undercut support for Allende.  Whether the CIA had any involvement in the final coup that overthrew Allende and ended in his death (an alleged suicide*), that information is still classified. 

In these times, where America has used the "War on Terror" as an excuse to run rough-shod over democratic principals and constitutional rights, the important thing to take away from all of this is the outcome of our involvement in Chile.  Some of us might learn something that could be useful in Iraq.  Most of us, probably not.

Of Allende's overthrow, Henry Kissinger remarked that America "didn't do it," but "we helped."  That's right: America helped to overthrow a democratically elected president.  By helping to destroy Allende's administration, America also  helped replace him with Augusto Pinochet, who is widely reviled as a brutal dictator, torturer, embezzler, and all-around asshole.  He is credited with "improving economic stability" in Chile--for rich people.  And that's all America wanted.  We were apparently perfectly happy with Pinochet's bloody reign, as we didn't make any attempt to overthrow him in his 26-year dictatorship.

*Based on witness accounts, it's likely that Allende did kill himself, as he was concerned that he would be captured and used as propaganda prior to an execution.  Considering the other things Pinochet did after the coup, I think Allende made the right choice.

Yup, it's official.  The folks in charge of the US occupation in Iraq have started to suggest that maybe, just maybe, after all, we're not going to be able to bring democracy to Iraq.  Nice.  So, no weapons of mass destruction, no link to 9/11, and now we're not even going to democratize Iraq.  Exactly what are we doing over there?

It's what I've said all along.  Everyone was so eager to trash-talk Saddam Hussein, but nobody had any idea how hard his job was.  Sure, he killed people, but do you have a clue how hard it is to hold together an artificially created country where three different groups of people want to kill each other?  Do you?  Suddenly, we're looking around and thinking, "Dang, this is really hard." 

Right up until they dropped the trapdoor under him, I thought we'd keep Saddam in reserve, in case we needed to reinstall him as dictator in Iraq.  I thought that was an evil and stupid idea, but killing him was a mistake.  I mean, we've killed the one guy who knew how to run the country.  You don't have to like him, or name your kids after him, but just admit it: he was killing fewer people than we have been on an annual basis.  (Not that I think governments ought to be killing any of their people, but I'm always going to prefer fewer dead to more dead.  The numbers don't look good for the US occupation.)  Plus, under Saddam, Iraqis had schools, electricity, clean water.

Sounds like we've just imported democrazy to Iraq.

So, if Iraq isn't going to have a democracy, does that mean that the US just destroyed the country's entire infrastructure, invited terrorists in, killed an estimated 500,000 civilians, plus 3600 US soldiers, all to topple one evil dictator and replace him with another evil dictator?  (Trust me, my people, there is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.)  All at a cost of one trill-i-on of dollars?

A bargain at twice the price.  If you've got stock in the oil industry or the military industrial complex.

Let's see...if Flanny were a person: my little cold, ruthless, calculating baby.  Well, I probably would steer clear of her.