Chile: 40 year anniversary.

40 years ago this week I was at a Labor Party conference in Ireland. The news came in. The US military and CIA thugs had carried out their military coup in Chile. The US economic thugs at the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys, drew up the agenda and the Chilean working class entered a nightmare of mass killings and mass poverty. All in the name of and organized by US capitalism and its profits and power and control.

It is these same thugs who lied to get the US people to agree to attack Iraq and Afghanistan. It is these same thugs who are now trying to convince the US people to attack Syria. It is sickening to watch talking head after talking head leave out any mention of the use by the US of chemical weapons in places like Vietnam and Iraq.

There are a few lessons to be learnt.

You cannot believe a word that comes out of the mouth's of the capitalist representatives and powers. They will say whatever they think will further their cause. They will not mention anything they think might hurt their cause. They insist that Syria hand over chemical weapons but there is never a word about the massive stock pile of nuclear weapons in the hands of the Zionist regime next door in Israel.

There is another lesson to be learnt from remembering the Chilean coup. Social democracy and the Stalinist parties and forces at the time were adamant that Allende was carrying out the right policy by not confronting the Chilean capitalist state, by leaving the Chilean capitalist state intact. A few of us disagreed and said the the Chilean capitalist state organized and backed by US capitalism would not respect the vote of the Chilean people. They would organize a coup. We explained that capitalism only believes in what we could call bourgeois democracy. That is it only tolerates democracy if capitalism and the capitalist class rules. As soon as it begins to lose its control then it will move to other means, military coups, civil wars, fascist methods. This remains true today. US and world capitalism are gearing up to confront the international working class and put it down in blood if it can. See the full body armor and automatic weapons on the cops surrounding peaceful pickets here in the US on this blog a few days ago.

The international working class must be clear on this. It only has a future if it organizes to overthrow the capitalist state and overthrow capitalism. We have to end the system and its state apparatus entirely and replace it with a democratic socialist world.

Sean.