Chile Elections and Referendums

[J.G.Harston]

Oct 25, 2020 10:25:54 GMT @kipper1 said:

Chile today holding a referendum today on replacing the 1980 constitution and on electing a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution. This is set to be approved in a landslide on both questions. For most Latin American countries Constituent Assemblies are the norm for writing constitutions a tradition that ultimately goes back to the Spanish Cadiz of 1812. Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil have all had multiple Constituent Assemblies over the last century

Chile has long been an exception. The last two constitutions the 1980 and 1925 constitutions were both written by a Committee set up by a sitting President and then approved in a national referendum, in the style of the 1958 French Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, to be elected next April, will therefore be Chile's first since 1833. 

Results site : www.servelelecciones.cl/

What stops the elections to the Constituent Assembly filling it with the same parasites that get elected to the National Congress?

[Devil Wincarnate]

There was some grim footage the other day of a Chilean policeman grabbing a protestor and throwing him off a bridge.

[Georg Ebner]

Oct 25, 2020 10:25:54 GMT @kipper1 said:

Chile today holding a referendum today on replacing the 1980 constitution and on electing a Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution. This is set to be approved in a landslide on both questions. For most Latin American countries Constituent Assemblies are the norm for writing constitutions a tradition that ultimately goes back to the Spanish Cadiz of 1812. Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil have all had multiple Constituent Assemblies over the last century

Chile has long been an exception. The last two constitutions the 1980 and 1925 constitutions were both written by a Committee set up by a sitting President and then approved in a national referendum, in the style of the 1958 French Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, to be elected next April, will therefore be Chile's first since 1833. 

Results site : www.servelelecciones.cl/

What the left didn't get through, when being itself in government, was enabled by the recent terreur...

Does anyone know, how many of those worthless LatinAmerican constitutions were written by BENTHAM?

[relique]

Apparently the results are quite clear: between 75 and 80% approve the idea of a new constitution and to have a constituent assembly to draw it.

[Khunanup]

Oct 26, 2020 6:15:59 GMT relique said:

Apparently the results are quite clear: between 75 and 80% approve the idea of a new constitution and to have a constituent assembly to draw it.

I'm surprised this hasn't happened before now as this current constitution was drawn up under military dictatorship.

I wonder what kind of changes willvresukt from this.

[The Bishop]

Oct 26, 2020 12:17:19 GMT Khunanup said:

Oct 26, 2020 6:15:59 GMT relique said:

Apparently the results are quite clear: between 75 and 80% approve the idea of a new constitution and to have a constituent assembly to draw it.

I'm surprised this hasn't happened before now as this current constitution was drawn up under military dictatorship.

I wonder what kind of changes willvresukt from this.

That's the sort of thing that casts a long shadow.

[Khunanup]

Oct 27, 2020 11:00:59 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 26, 2020 12:17:19 GMT Khunanup said:

I'm surprised this hasn't happened before now as this current constitution was drawn up under military dictatorship.

I wonder what kind of changes willvresukt from this.

The present constitution was written in reaction to Salvador Allende's catastrophic Presidency.

It is usually forgotten that the 1973 Coup followed a demand for military intervention from the majority of the Chilean Congress, including not only the parties of the right but also the centrist Christian Democrats who saw it as the only way to end the massive damage that Salvador Allende, the Nicolas Maduro of his day, was doing to Chile

The constitution was specifically written with many safeguards in it to prevent a repetition of the Allende disaster. One of these was the amendment mechanism which was designed to ensure that even when they get the majority of the vote (which in Chile they usually do) the left would never be able to amend the Constitution by itself without at least some support fro the Center right. This rather frustrated the left in Chile who, despite managing to get a number of significant constitutional reforms passed did not manage to get the addition of their list of "Social Rights" goodies to be added. They want a constitution more like that of Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicuragua, something that has clearly served those countries so well

After decades of hagiography of the abysmal Allende and 'Black legend' type propaganda against Pinochet and everything associated with him there was a big majority in favour of a new constitution an after a bit of rioting by the usual suspects President Pinera agreed to hold this referendum

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that you believe that poor, defenceless General Pinochet is a victim of negative 'propaganda'... 🙄

[relique]

September 11 is still, in my political circles, a day of remembrance of the atrocious Coup and murders in Chile.

[John Chanin]

Visiting Chile 2 years ago, my guide (a German Chilean in her early 30s) was distinctly disconcerted to find out I had been in Chile just before the coup, had friends who were interned during it, and had rather more knowledge of politics of the time than she did. In particular our views of Allende were very different. Politics was off limits after this, which I didn’t mind as it wasn’t why I was revisiting Chile after more than 40 years.

The move to a new constitution is wholly positive, and a way of purging the conflicts of the past. This is why it has considerable support among more conservative Chileans, and is not a partisan measure.

[Devil Wincarnate]

It's possible to regret both Pinochet and Allende, of course.

[relique]

Yeah, because talking about "marxist indoctrination" when speaking of a plan to integrate schools and provide education from 1 to 18, that's not a completely biased discourse by an opposition willing to legitimate a military coup and its following massive crimes on its population ?

[CatholicLeft]

Oct 28, 2020 14:10:24 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 27, 2020 14:41:01 GMT relique said:

Yeah, because talking about "marxist indoctrination" when speaking of a plan to integrate schools and provide education from 1 to 18, that's not a completely biased discourse by an opposition willing to legitimate a military coup and its following massive crimes on its population ?

I don't really think that it was education policy that was the biggest thing pushing the coup. I think the Robert Mugabe style seizure of farms and businesses by lawless government backed mobs might have had something to do with it. The economic carnage caused by its policies didn't help either. As the resolution noted

f) It has systematically violated the constitutional guarantee of property rights by allowing and supporting more than 1,500 illegal "takings" of farms, and by encouraging the "taking" of hundreds of industrial and commercial establishments in order to later seize them or illegally place them in receivership and thereby, through looting, establish state control over the economy; this has been one of the determining causes of the unprecedented decline in production, the scarcity of goods, the black market and suffocating rise in the cost of living, the bankruptcy of the national treasury, and generally of the economic crisis that is sweeping the country and threatening basic household welfare, and very seriously compromising national security;

11. That it powerfully contributes to the breakdown of the Rule of Law by providing government protection and encouragement of the creation and maintenance of a number of organizations which are subversive [to the constitutional order] in the exercise of authority granted to them by neither the Constitution nor the laws of the land, in open violation of article 10, number 16 of the Constitution. These include community commandos, peasant councils, vigilance committees, the JAP, etc.; all designed to create a so-called "popular authority" with the goal of replacing legitimately elected authority and establishing the foundation of a totalitarian dictatorship. These facts have been publicly acknowledged by the President of the Republic in his last State of the Nation address and by all government media and strategists;

The repression that happened afterwards was specifically in order to deal with the problem of these lawless violent mobs that Allende had both encoraged and armed. That's not to say that there weren't plenty of innocent people that also suffered along with the guilty. However the people in the Allende founded mobs and terrorists were not going to suddenly start behaving like civilised human beings just because the new government asked them to. Some harsh measures were needed to deal with the problem.

"Some harsh measures?" Dr. Sheila Cassidy, a deeply religious British medical doctor who was working in Chile, at the time, was arrested, imprisoned and vilely tortured for the crime of treating a man who had been shot in the leg. She was not politically motivated, was interested in providing medical care for the poorest and, for the crime of helping, was tortured with the parilla, had electric shocks administered to her vagina, never facing a judicial process.
She is a leading expert on palliative care and a great writer on suffering. One can understand why.

[CatholicLeft]

Oct 29, 2020 11:22:43 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 28, 2020 14:31:22 GMT CatholicLeft said:

"Some harsh measures?" Dr. Sheila Cassidy, a deeply religious British medical doctor who was working in Chile, at the time, was arrested, imprisoned and vilely tortured for the crime of treating a man who had been shot in the leg. She was not politically motivated, was interested in providing medical care for the poorest and, for the crime of helping, was tortured with the parilla, had electric shocks administered to her vagina, never facing a judicial process.
She is a leading expert on palliative care and a great writer on suffering. One can understand why.

Of course accusations of torture made by former Marxists terrorists from MIR should be taken with a great pinch of salt. They have every motivation to invent lurid torture porn as a way of attcking their former jailers and they clearly have the character to invent such stories because, well, if they were honest or decent people they could never have become Marxist terrorists in the first place

But this Dr Cassidy you mention. You suggest she's a more compelling witness because "She was not politically motivated, was interested in providing medical care for the poorest". However reading an account by her

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment-put-my-torturer-on-trial-1180638.html

she comes accross as highly political. She crudely whitewashes the Allende regieme, suggesting he just wanted to help the poor. She caracatures the opposition to Allende, suggesting that it was just rich people who objected only to paying more taxes. And she euphamistically refers to the Marxist terrorist she treated as a "revolutionary". A "revolutionary" that little apolitical Dr Cassidy just happened to be asked to treat. I'm afraid I just don't find plausible her claim that she wasn't actively supporting the terrorists before her arrest

Now that doesn't prove that she invented her torture story. However it does mean that some corroberation would be needed before simply accepting it as true

Unsurprisingly, she became politicised due to the torture she suffered. Of course she wanted the leader of the regime that tortured her to be punished. Not one person has seriously questioned her account. You googled her and think you know her? I have met her, read her books (which are largely spiritual and medical ethics books), until General Pinochet came to the UK, she made no public comments, suggesting people read her account in "Audacity of Hope" rather than talk about it. A British woman is tortured and you give her torturer the benefit of the doubt, not my concept of patriotism at all.

[CatholicLeft]

Oct 29, 2020 13:56:44 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 29, 2020 11:38:06 GMT CatholicLeft said:

Unsurprisingly, she became politicised due to the torture she suffered. Of course she wanted the leader of the regime that tortured her to be punished. Not one person has seriously questioned her account. You googled her and think you know her? I have met her, read her books (which are largely spiritual and medical ethics books), until General Pinochet came to the UK, she made no public comments, suggesting people read her account in "Audacity of Hope" rather than talk about it. A British woman is tortured and you give her torturer the benefit of the doubt, not my concept of patriotism at all.

This woman's claim to have been completely non political before her arrest just doesn't add up she admits to having close contact with "a number of President Allende's personal friends". She gives a glowing description of the Allende regime, she's not just anti-Pinochet (as many are) but strongly pro-Allende and is highly critical of Allende opponents. And yet we are supposed to believe that this educated woman had formed no political opinions about the tumultuous events of 1971-1975 prior to her arrest

The real givaway of course is her, just happening to be asked to treat a fugitive terrorist. After all this was not some little Jewish child hiding from the Gestapo. This was a violent marxist terrorist fugitive, in other words someone who was the very opposite of a decent human being and someone who was a dangerous menace to society. How could the MIR people be confident that she would not do what any good civicly minded person should have done, voluntarily inform the police herself of the whereabouts of this menace. I would suggest they were confident she would not do this because they knew that she already sympathised with the Marxists

She is a doctor who cared for a wounded man. You could not get further from a Marxist than Sheila Cassidy.

[CatholicLeft]

Oct 29, 2020 14:14:54 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 29, 2020 14:03:33 GMT CatholicLeft said:

She is a doctor who cared for a wounded man. You could not get further from a Marxist than Sheila Cassidy.

She shielded a violent marxist terrorist. Would she have done the same for any other dangerous fugitive? Would she has done the same for a fugitive child molester? A fugitive serial killer? A fugitive human traffiker? If not then why would she think that a marxist terrorist was any better or more worthy of shielding if she didn't sympathise with his ideology?

She would have treated any patient brought to her.

[CatholicLeft]

Oct 29, 2020 17:55:08 GMT @kipper1 said:

Oct 29, 2020 17:18:24 GMT CatholicLeft said:

She would have treated any patient brought to her.

Erm yes. An entirely appropriate thing for a Doctor to do. Treating a patient without regard to their criminal record or anything else like that was her medical duty. Once she had completed the treatment her civic duty was then to go to the Police and inform them of everything she knew about the location and movements of this dangerous terrorist menace and all his co-conspirators.

The fact that she failed to do this and instead boasts about going to extreme lengths to shield these scumbags suggests that she was already sympathetic to their cause. Now that doesn't prove that what she said about her time in custody was a typical example of a Marxist invented torture porn sob story. It's possible that that part of her story in 100% true. It does mean however that more solid evidence is needed than just her word.

You truly are lacking in anything approaching a thread of humanity. One of this country's foremost experts in palliative care, a former contemplative nun and spiritual writer dismissed as perhaps sharing "a typical example of a Marxist invented torture porn sob story."

[John Chanin]

There are a number of unapologetic fascists on this site, and it is a waste of time responding to them.

[Forfarshire Conservative]

Oct 29, 2020 18:31:21 GMT John Chanin said:

There are a number of unapologetic fascists on this site, and it is a waste of time responding to them.

No, there aren't.

[Sibboleth]

Christ Alive.

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2020 18:40:48 GMT Sibboleth said:

Christ Alive.

Yes, I came to look out of curiosity as well - & wish I hadn't. What an obnoxious individual.