The Other September 11th The Chilean Coup

We all remember where we were on September 11th, 2001.  I was getting ready for work, watching the first plane hit the first building. The news thought it was a small plane that accidentally crashed. I continued with my pre-work regimen when the second one hit and I drove to work dazed.


But how many of us remember September 11th, 1973? Chile-we hardly could find it on a map. The Vietnam War, Watergate...the US backed military coup was lost in all of that. 


The most striking part of it to me is that we share September 11th, as well as the amount of people killed, around 3,000 in both cases. In both instances, they were followed by heavy privatization (Walter Reed, our US military, the post office, etc., etc.) and the socialization of private debt.   Jose Pinera was in charge of the large majority of privatization and is writing glowing reports at The Cato Institute and never mentioning these were undertaken under a military dictatorship. A 17 year dictatorship. He neglects to mention the bailout President Bachelet gave to pensions. Or the commission expense ratios that take advantage of people. 


Some interesting background here or here.  It would take many books to really cover the topics, most won't be read because that is too time consuming of course. But id you can spare a few minutes to understand something of what has happened in Chile and the US and understand our commonalities, perhaps we can better predict our futures.


Many husbands and wives and children also kissed each other for the last time that day. But their days were followed by many more of detainment,  torture and murder.