Huge demonstration in Santiago today

[rabs]

Photo shows only a portion of the crowd near La Moneda

University, high school students, teachers, professors, university academic leaders, labor sindicates, parents ...

Organizers saying 200,000 marched to La Moneda. Others say up to 400,000. Similar demonstrations were held in other cities. In Santiago it was the largest demonstration since Pinera took over 15 months ago.

The demonstrations were to protest the Pinera government's efforts to "profitize" public education in Chile.

Chilean Constitution guarantees all a free, public education at the lower levels. Pinera government is trying to privatize and charter many public schools.

There were the usual clashes but not from the vast majority of demonstrators. Carabineros said a group of about 50 trouble-makers took advantage and tried to break into stores. Some were arrested, teargassed.

So the problems continue to mount for Pinera.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Wow. It's growing, isn't it? He's got a problem.

That's the 1st photo of La Moneda I've seen for a long time. Looks as if the right-wing was able to restore the building after they bombed it to destroy Allende.

Great crowd there, and the shot doesn't hold a complete look at all of them, either.

[rabs]

3. Photo gallery from El Mercurio

Note El Mercurio, which is pinerachetista, focuses on the small group of thugs who always show up to create trouble. Typical El Mercurio. Emphasize about 50 thugs, while the other 200,000 or more demonstrated peacefully.

http://www.emol.com/MundoGrafico/index.asp?G_ID=18810

La Moneda was restored during the Pinochet dictatorship. The building on the right in the OP is the defense ministry. You have posted photos of soldiers on the roof of the ministry firing at La Moneda on Sept. 11, 1973.

The offices where I worked was directly across the defense ministry. I once counted 253 bullet impacts in the walls. No one was hit.

[Judi Lynn]

4. If the same thing goes on in Chile which happens here, and in Canada,

those provocateurs just may actually be someone quite different, like out of uniform police, as has been discovered elsewhere. It gives the police justification to show a heavy presence at any protest without looking like a bunch of Nazis.

I remember once your mentioning there were bullets in the building across the street, but I can see that's quite a distance from their target, now! I didn't know you worked there, too. Interesting.

Clearly, anyone on top of the Defense building would have a great view of La Moneda. Quite the advantage for a group of snipers. What a shame.

[Peace Patriot]

2. The corporate assault on public education continues...

You gotta wonder why/how ANY public official in a democracy can attack public education--it is so fundamental to democracy, helping to create a population that is not only able to participate in modern public life, but has also been educated in the history, laws and ideals of self-government.

Public education is ESSENTIAL to the very idea of self-government in the modern world.

In order to grasp how a politician like Pinera--or the fascists in this country--can assault public education, you have to understand that they are NOT loyal to their democracy or their country. They often parade as "nationalists." They are NOT "nationalists," even in the rightwing/fascist sense of xenophobic self-puffery and antagonism to others. They are CORPORATISTS, and are following a transnational corporate agenda of weakening national states--weakening the ability of self-governing people to charter, regulate and tax corporations and the super-rich. They WANT an illiterate, ignorant majority population, with a pampered elite, nurtured in their charter schools, as the "trained monkeys" for the lower rungs of corporate rule, while the super-rich--who send their offspring to posh private schools--run the world.

When I was young, university education--in California, where I was raised, and in many other states--was free. FREE! This vast and awesome educational enterprise, generated out of the "New Deal," was beginning to create a population that questioned "authority"--for instance, the Vietnam War--and that resisted its injustice and its horrors, on many issues--including the U.S. supported slaughters in Latin America, U.S. corporate evil-doing in Latin America and other places, segregation, lack of voting rights and bigotry against black citizens here, and more. Not only were public elementary and high schools free--and very high quality--but state universities were free and also very high quality. And, I think as a direct result of educated young people beginning to understand our country and the world, the assault on, first, public university education, and now, all public education, began.

There were two milestones in California, as to dismantling its public education system: first, the imposition of "fees" at the Univ. of California (which of course immediately began to escalate into a form of tuition and now is totally out of control); and second, the P.R. sale of the notion of a state lottery to fund the "extras" in public elementary and high schools (science labs, the arts, sports, etc.) The latter contained a double-corporate agenda--both accustoming people to the idea that becoming an instant millionaire was possible (so important to creating a "nation of sheep"), AND creating a lootable "pot of gold" to be used in state budget flummery to disguise the egregiously unfair, pro-corporate, pro-rich tax system. Now all the "extras" in public schools are going or gone--so much for the P.R. bullshit about the state lottery--and a university education has been put out of the reach of the poor and out of reach even for much of the middle class.

Who benefits from a free, high quality education system? The people and democracy itself. Who benefits from an illiterate, ignorant majority controlled by a pampered elite? Transglobal corporations and war profiteers and their fascist lackeys in government.

This assault on public education has been systematic and very focused. Its object is to DESTROY democracy and the natural progressivism, peacefulness and sense of justice of a well-informed, well-educated democratic people.

I am appalled to see this CORPORATE attack on public education beginning in Chile. Next we will see Diebold/ES&S 'tabulating' all their votes with 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, and they will be as fucked as we are. And I fervently hope that they throw this guy out. Latin America is pretty much the only bright spot in the world, on democracy and progressive values, precisely because the Left has rejected this and other "neo-liberal" corpo-fascist ploys and has been very successful at winning elections and turing things around in Latin America on many fronts, including the right to an education and protection of "the commons."