Talk:Augusto Pinochet/Archive 1

message: Regarding "terrorist attacks" -> "violent attacks". Um, isn't violent redundant? "terrorist" told me something useful about the attack -- they're attacks against non-military and/or civilian targets. However, aren't pretty much all attacks violent? I realize you could have a "non-violent attack", but that's pretty much an oxymoron. Daniel Quinlan 23:01, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)
:In this context, 'terrorist' is a POV-loaded term. Many saw Pinochet and his regime as an illegal entity of state-backed murderers. It is one thing to talk about those engaged in armed violence against a legally empowered state, where the state demonstrably has legal and constitutional legitimacy, as 'terrorists'. But it is more problematic where the 'state' is made up of a military junta that seized power contrary to law and was responsible for the death of tens of thousands, to describe their opponents who also practiced voilence as terrorist. Saying they engaged in violence is a statement of fact, calling them terrorists when they were acting against a military junta that had no democratic mandate, is dangerously judgmental. In their eyes they were the equivalent of those who fought against German control of France during WWII. I am not saying they were and I am not saying their actions were justified, but the situation under Pinochet was not akin to ETA fighting the democratic Spanish state, or the IRA fighting a democratically elected and accountable UK. FearÉIREANN 00:36, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Euphemisms

message: The article had:
:was a military dictator who...
I cut this, because dictators don't generally create constitutions which result in their getting voted out of office! --Uncle Ed 19:06, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: March 29, 1936 - Hitler gets 99% approval in a "free" plebicite approving Nazi rule Mintguy (T) 19:16, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Dictatorship vs. democracy

message: Pinochet didn't murder only communists. For reference about the victim of Pinochet see: http://www.lakota.clara.net/derechos/victims.htm Ericd 09:20, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pinochet victims

message: I made over a dozen edits today, mostly moving entire sentences and paragraphs around. I also laid out what I regard as the major bones of contention -- right after the 1st paragraph.
I hope everyone finds the flow of the article easier to deal with now. --Uncle Ed 20:02, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Massive rearrangement

message: I have to say I rather preferred the article as it was (just so you see where I'm coming from here...) Anyway, here's a list of POV stuff:
* "Was the overthrow of Allende "anti-democratic" (as critics charge) or "democracy-preserving" (as supporters maintain)?" — Oversimplified. Do we know that all his supporters maintain he was a democrat, and that all his detractors do not?
* "Did Pinochet's economic policies help the country (as free market advocates generally claim) or hurt it (as socialism advocates charge)?" — Not so bad, but far too bipolar. You don't have to be a socialist to object to Pinochet's economic reforms (you could just as well be a Keynesian, for example), and are we so sure that a significant majority of free market economists liked them either? The article identifies his economic policy quite specifically with Friedman and the Chicago Boys, not free market capitalism in general.
Generally this article has far too much of this "socialists/working class people hated him and everyone else thought he was great" stuff (not that all of this is down to Ed, it's a general comment). I have to say Wikipedia is the first place I've ever heard a good word uttered about the man; let's try not to make it look as if opposition to Pinochet is an exclusively left/liberal position. --Cadr
:Thank you for your thoughtful observations. I was at least trying to mention the fact that there is controversy. Rather than just saying he's obviously a bad guy. If I've over-simplified the controversy, it's due to my numerous and lengthy conversations with campus radicals dating back to the mid-1970s. The left demonizes Pinochet as "anti-democratic, CIA-supported, anti-poor butcher" for daring to overthrow an "elected socialist". It's part of their argument that people would vote for socialism if only the capitalists would let them; in other cases, they must OVERTHROW the ruling class to get their rights.
:Although I am trying to follow the NPOV, I (obviously) subscribe to the opposite POV: i.e., that democracy and free markets get people their rights MUCH better than socialism and dictatorship.
:I'm open to suggestions; but please don't revert ALL of my work -- just the mistakes, okay? --Uncle Ed 20:32, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wasn't planning on reverting it all, don't worry ;) I sort of see where you're coming from regarding the campus radicals, but try it like this: replace "elected socialist" with "elected government" and their argument seems a lot better, IMO. I guess the point is that Chile did have a democratically elected government before Pinochet took over — and in fact the people did vote for socialists when given the chance, on that occasion. So, even if you didn't like Allende's government at all, the coup is hard to justify purely in terms of bringing democracy. The thing about your POV which I disagree with is the association of socialism with dictatorship and free markets with freedom in general. I do repsect that POV — it's not completely crazy by any means — but I think it may be responsible for some (fairly subtle) bits of POV in the article (as I outlined in my previous comment). You can be an opponent of socialism/Communism, a supporter of democracy and of free trade, and still have numerous perfectly legitimate objections to Pinochet, although if you held these views you might be inclined to see him as the lesser of two evils. I think the lesser of two evils POV may be what yours is, at a guess, i.e. you are more anti-Allende and anti-Communism than pro-Pinochet. I'd like to suggest a strategy for summarising the various POVs on Pinochet, which I think we're both making an honest effort to do. It might be better not to try and characterise in terms of supporters' and detractors' overall POVs in the introduction, which tends to distort the POV spectrum towards extremes, but rather mention specific aspects of his policy individually in the intro. For example: "His economic reforms were inspired by so-and-so and were less well regarded by X, Y and Z" — that sort of thing. Cadr
I see this page is protected now, on account of basically one user (172) who has no interest in neutrality and is trying to reinsert highly disputed assertions into the intro against a litany of users who are trying to actually work on the article and make it fair. 172 has not defended his actions here, nor shown awareness of the long conversation we've already had on this page. -- VV 01:36, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Some POV in the intro introduced by Ed Poor's latest edits

message: This page has been protected and reverted to a version edited by Ed Poor at 10:22, April 16, 2004. It will remain protected pending the outcome of the 172 and VeryVerily quickpolls. --Flockmeal 03:59, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)
: As VV has been temp-banned, and 172 is taking a temporary holiday from Wikipedia, and as this is a discussion page which (per policy) should typically not be protected, I unprotected. Martin 23:13, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: 172's holiday is a bit suspicious. He came back a little while ago and posted a comment to the Quickpoll page, so I wouldn't be too surprised if this page was vandalized again by him. --Cantus 00:29, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

text: 172 is (apparently) gone. Please unprotect the article. --Cantus 06:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: 172 is not going anywhere. It was an idle threat to get the quickpoll to go his way. -- VV 10:44, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Protected

message: An anti-Pinochet site says:
:In 1973, after the Allende government moved to introduce Socialist ideals into the predominantly Roman Catholic education system, and after the leader of the Socialist party called for a barracks rebellion against senior officers, the military broke its tradition of being apolitical and staged a bloody coup, backed by Washington. 
I'd like to know more about those "Socialist ideals". Does this mean indoctrination into atheist Communism, or what? I can't think of anything that would get peace-loving Catholics riled up, other than messing with their belief system. I mean try telling a gang of teenagers in South Boston that the Virgin Mary wasn't a virgin, and see what happens... --Uncle Ed 19:48, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: More about the coup

message: I removed the protection from this page because the discussion on this talk page has not been active. --"DICK" CHENEY 15:19, 2 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Protection

message: My edit to the intro was only supposed to be temporary, in case anyone got the wrong idea. I just thought it might stop the edit wars long enough for a consensus to be reached on the talk page. The alternative was (apparently) for the page to be protected again. Cadr
::I had, you'll note, accepted this stop-gap measure, but 172 continued to revert to his version anyway, in fact reverted once just to revert. Thus, alas, I concluded this idea was DOA. -- VV 23:09, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: And now we're back to that alternative again. It would be nice if there was some actual discussion on the talk page this time, so that unprotection doesn't simply lead to a resumption of the same revert war again. --Michael Snow 23:02, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See how much discussion there's been? See what it's gotten us? -- VV 23:09, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me assure you, whatever the discussion may or may not have "gotten us", the discussion is not causing the revert wars or the page protection. You and 172 are the ones responsible for that. Kindly start discussing the content of the article, both of you. I am very close to asking you to discuss your conduct before the arbitration committee. --Michael Snow 23:17, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely you've noticed the asymmetry between our handling of the situation, impartial though you may wish to be? All partisans worked out an intro that was mutually tolerable. The reverting started when 172 refused to accept any other than his own. You must be aware by now of 172's tactics; recall this is someone who told you to "fuck off" not a few weeks ago. If I thought there was any credible Wikipedia apparatus for ending the madness on this page, I would take it. But I have tried them all - consensus building, third-party admins, RfC pages, quickpolls - without avail. (Okay, except mediation, which I have, as I promised, been reading up on, but remain doubtful of.) It seems when dealing with the likes of 172 one must use equal force if one's edits are to not be consigned to the dustbin of page history as soon as they are submitted. (I should also note I generally do back off a bit if even modest signs of possible good faith compromise appear, as I did earlier today on the Soviet history page.) -- VV 23:38, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said, please discuss the content of the article. To the extent that I discuss how you two handle the situation, I will continue to remain impartial and apply my statements to both of you, because not all the evidence is present here. If you end up in arbitration, the evidence can be gathered and we can let the arbitration committee decide if one of you behaved less badly than the other. I don't care what 172 told me to do; that's no reason for me to treat him differently from you. --Michael Snow 23:51, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It was evidence of the same sort of incivility we've all suffered. Impartiality is a tricky notion here, when it was "impartiality" in the form of consensus and POV-balancing that produced the consensus intro I now defend. (Can you be impartial between your notion of impartiality and mine? Okay, that was mostly a joke.) I am a bit at a loss as to what to say about the content that I and others have not said already, mostly unanswered. Indeed, if you'll note, the discussion above is lopsided in this respect. -- VV 23:57, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro