Following Chile’s lead

For 16 years in Chile, under near-laboratory conditions, a team of right-wing economists dismantled the Chilean state.

Their plan called for a drastic reduction in government spending, the privatization of government services (social security and education) and pensions, dismantling unions, massive deregulation, liberalization of international trade, privatizing health care, expropriation of land and rewriting its constitution and laws.

The result was that unemployment soared, contract bidding was confined to only a few, wages fell drastically, private property was “expropriated” by the “haves,” medical care was denied to anyone who couldn’t pay for it and safety nets like unemployment or welfare didn’t exist.

The middle class disappeared, leaving only rich and poor. Crime and hunger exploded, and the results were economic genocide. And right-wing economists then had the nerve to call this experiment a success!

Sound familiar? Wake up, America, before it’s too late; we need to stop following like sheep and fight for our rights! Turn off Fox News – as a member of the corporate media, they are not on our side – and let our own voices be heard.

Joanna McPherson

Spokane