Word: chiles
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With the election of President Salvador Allende in 1970, Chile's image in the U.S. public eye began to focus sharply. Reports from liberal and conservative sources alike--of which The New York Times was one of the worst--painted Allende as an imposter, a Red opportunist elected on a fluke. He was labelled "Marxist President" Allende to suggest that he was not a president in the sense of a Frei, a Thieu, or a Nixon. He was blamed for Chile's economic distress and for the consequent demonstrations of pot-banging housewives and striking truckers...
...Chile: with poems and guns is an hour-long documentary which dissolves the myths U.S. readers were fed about the government of Salvador Allende. It shows how these lies and distortions were rooted in misconceptions about the Chile before Allende's government. The film was produced collectively by members of the Los Angeles Group for Latin American Solidarity, eight filmmakers, writers, and historians who put what they call a film pamphlet together. It is based on a script by Charles Horman, a U.S. citizen killed by the junta after the U.S. Santiago embassy denied him asylum...
...lies about Chile are easy to debunk. It is easy to show that the protesting women were upper class matriarchs, complaining because higher wages for workers meant more costly luxury items and food. It is easy to point out that the truckers were not salaried drivers, but independent owners who controlled their own trucks. Under Allende, production in the state-run economic sector, in fact, rose 20 per cent, and 35 million acres of land were redistributed to peasants...
...REAL ENEMIES of Chilean economic and social progress were Chile's upper class and the United States. From the first month after Allende's election, right--wing extremist groups tried assassination and terror to spark a middle class Red scare and a military revolt. Management struck factories which workers forced to stay open; workers established committees for self-defense and to distribute goods directly to the people...
While the United States helped frustrate Chilean middle class consumerism, it eagerly armed the generals waiting to topple the government. Last summer, the United States expected to donate $45 million this year to Chile's army and air force--more than ten times the $4 million in all other forms of aid the United States was providing for the Chilean people...