It's been over 51 years ago. Let's do something NOW. Find Oleg Pyzhcov, who seems to have disappeared about 2 years ago, in Belarus, and/or at least find the traces, the witnesses. He is a known guy in software. But it seems like nobody (in software world) fucking cares what happened to the guy whose code they caressly use.
When I was in Chile exactly a year ago, I picked up a calendar for 1973. The dates went September 8, September 9, September 10, September 11, September 11, September 11, September 11... Chile still lives in September 11, 1973. The trauma is alive as if it were today in the morning. In a country that then had, what, 9 million people, there were something like 1500 torture chambers. That is not something that easy to live down.
I am not saying that should be the only thing. But these things should never be forgotten - or forgiven. At the Memory Museum in Santiago I bought a biography of one Miguel Krasnoff. The grandfather served the Tsar, the father served Hitler, the grandson went for Pinochet. History is not a series of unrelated vignettes.
We should remember them all. South America is not another world: and they are aware of us. Some time ago I've quoted from Timerman
And we should be on alert. We were lucky to escape, evade all this. I feel like, hmm, with all my graffitis, books copying and distribution, how come I was never caught? Ok, I thought I was really careful. But now I know I was not. Just pure luck and hubris. Like when cops, during a meeting, approached me and my friend, going to grab us, I just told them: "don't interfere, do you see, we are talking?" - and they left. Ok, we were, may of us, lucky. But not all.
One thing I cannot but reiterate: survivor's bias should not blind us to the fact that we all have been really lucky. There is a lot we should be grateful for.
"There has been some progress since then in creating a national consensus that the atrocities of the dictatorship must never again — nunca más — be tolerated. But today Chile’s radical right and more than a third of Chileans have expressed approval of the Pinochet regime. No consensus, therefore, has been reached about the coup itself, despite the efforts of Chile’s current president, Gabriel Boric. Mr. Boric, who is just 37 and an admirer of Mr. Allende, tried to have all political parties sign a joint statement that declared that under no circumstances can a military takeover ever be justified. Last week, the right-wing parties declined to sign the statement. The right-wing leader José Antonio Kast, a sort of Trump of the Andes who is favored to win the presidency in 2025, is an outspoken supporter of the dictator’s legacy. He refuses, like an alarming number of his devotees, to condemn what happened on Sept. 11, 1973. They insist on the thesis that, regrettable as the resulting abuses may have been, the armed forces had no alternative but to rise up in order to save Chile from socialism." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/opinion/chile-allende-september-11.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk4.eHR8.Uia0CyVT1hUS&smid=url-share
I did. For a while. But I hoped - against reason - it won't pass.
Humans are, to a remarkable degree, statistically predictable. As a social scientist I should rejoice in this observation. Alas, the prediction gives me little joy.
He got his start as a “Game of Thrones” blogger before pivoting to promoting multiple far-right conspiracy theories, all while developing extensive ties to white supremacists and publicly posting racist and antisemitic messages online. Posobiec nevertheless became a MAGA star and a prominent pro-Trump propagandist, appearing regularly on Fox News and at the Conservative Political Action Conference, among other forums. Last year he published the book “Unhumans: The Secret History Of Communist Revolutions (And How To Crush Them),” in which he argues that Americans with left-of-center views are subhuman while praising the violent fascistic regimes of Franco in Spain and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. (Vance provided a blurb for the book.) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronation-ball-trump-fascist-passage-press_n_677d9070e4b0dbd92b0ff705?yxm
“In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.” —J. D. Vance, Senator (R-OH)
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sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 12:32 am (UTC)Let's do something NOW. Find Oleg Pyzhcov, who seems to have disappeared about 2 years ago, in Belarus, and/or at least find the traces, the witnesses. He is a known guy in software. But it seems like nobody (in software world) fucking cares what happened to the guy whose code they caressly use.
I'm out of ideas now.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 05:37 pm (UTC)I am not saying that should be the only thing. But these things should never be forgotten - or forgiven. At the Memory Museum in Santiago I bought a biography of one Miguel Krasnoff. The grandfather served the Tsar, the father served Hitler, the grandson went for Pinochet. History is not a series of unrelated vignettes.
We should remember them all. South America is not another world: and they are aware of us. Some time ago I've quoted from Timerman
https://gomberg.dreamwidth.org/2692.html
We should be aware as well.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 12:53 am (UTC)No consensus, therefore, has been reached about the coup itself, despite the efforts of Chile’s current president, Gabriel Boric. Mr. Boric, who is just 37 and an admirer of Mr. Allende, tried to have all political parties sign a joint statement that declared that under no circumstances can a military takeover ever be justified. Last week, the right-wing parties declined to sign the statement.
The right-wing leader José Antonio Kast, a sort of Trump of the Andes who is favored to win the presidency in 2025, is an outspoken supporter of the dictator’s legacy. He refuses, like an alarming number of his devotees, to condemn what happened on Sept. 11, 1973. They insist on the thesis that, regrettable as the resulting abuses may have been, the armed forces had no alternative but to rise up in order to save Chile from socialism."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/opinion/chile-allende-september-11.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk4.eHR8.Uia0CyVT1hUS&smid=url-share
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 01:44 am (UTC)I remember the Russians, in the '90s, were big supporters of Pinochet. We did not understand then what it meant. Now we probably do.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 06:03 pm (UTC)Humans are, to a remarkable degree, statistically predictable. As a social scientist I should rejoice in this observation. Alas, the prediction gives me little joy.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-12 04:42 pm (UTC)Posobiec nevertheless became a MAGA star and a prominent pro-Trump propagandist, appearing regularly on Fox News and at the Conservative Political Action Conference, among other forums. Last year he published the book “Unhumans: The Secret History Of Communist Revolutions (And How To Crush Them),” in which he argues that Americans with left-of-center views are subhuman while praising the violent fascistic regimes of Franco in Spain and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. (Vance provided a blurb for the book.)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronation-ball-trump-fascist-passage-press_n_677d9070e4b0dbd92b0ff705?yxm
“In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags. Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people. In Unhumans, Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.”
—J. D. Vance, Senator (R-OH)