Liberals and Military Dictatorships: From Johnson to Obama

[StarfarerBill]

By Edward Herman, Z Magazine

BRAZIL: In 1971, the military dictator of Brazil, Emilio Medici, commented somewhat regretfully that, "The economy is doing fine, but the people aren't." Ofcourse, he was claiming at the same time that the people would some day do better under military rule. But that was pie in the sky. It was the very design of the Brazilian military dictatorship to keep the people down, atomized, and exploitable in the interest of the elite that had supported and participated in the 1964 overthrow of civilian rule (the local elite, the transnationals, and the Brazilian and U.S. military establishments). The unions and social democratic parties were dismantled and the "people" deprived of any organizational protection and made fearful.

A classic Catholic Church document of the late 1960s was titled "The Cry of the People." In the description of the military regime in another church document, the development model put in place was said, by its brutal treatment of the masses, to have "created a revolution that did not exist." The upward redistribution of income was dramatic, not only in Brazil, but in the other National Security States brought into existence with U.S. support in the 1960s and later. But these regimes did provide a temporary "stability," explained clearly by the finance minister of the Argentine military dictatorship in 1977: "This plan can be fulfilled despite its lack of popular support. It has sufficient political support...that provided by the armed forces."

REAL TERROR NETWORK: It is of great interest and importance that the emergence, growth, and dominance of the National Security State in Latin America, complete with the widespread prevalence of death squads and torture, and the "marginalization of a people" (the title of another church document), took place in the U.S. backyard and with crucial U.S. initiative and support. It is also notable that U.S. liberals were in the forefront in advancing this process.

Lyndon Johnson was president when the democratically elected Juan Bosch was overthrown in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and replaced by a regime of terror, with U.S. help. Johnson was very active in the earlier and even more significant 1964 displacement of a democracy with a military dictatorship in Brazil. Maybe the most famous line describing that murderous transfer of power was the statement by Johnson's Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lincoln Gordon that the Brazilian "revolution" of 1964 was "the single most decisive victory for freedom in the mid-twentieth century." Gordon subsequently became president of Johns Hopkins University.

Quite a few of the real terror network regimes were ended and displaced with civilian rule in the 1980s and 1990s, although the heavy U.S. hand in Central America left that area devastated and with problematic and regressive politics up to the present day. But, as we know from reading Michael Ignatieff in the New York Times, the United States once again "changed course" and took on the task of "democracy promotion" in the early 21st century. According to Ignatieff: "The democratic turn in American foreign policy has been recent. Latin Americans remember when the American presence meant backing death squads and military juntas." And, "In the cold war, most presidents opted for stability at the price of liberty when they had to choose."

More:
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/viewArticle/23530

[madrchsod]

1. from truman to obama.....

american presidents have used force or approval to further the corporate american empire