Does Bachelet Represent The Left?

Does Bachelet represent "the left"? This question has become a bit more relevant today as countries throughout Latin America have elected and reelected a string of left-wing candidates. Evo Morales in Bolivia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Nestor Kirschner in Argentina, Lula Da Silva in Brazil,etc. The international press has included Bachelet in this "turn to the left" panorama. When the international press focuses on Bachelet’s personal history, it’s easy to assume that Bachelet belongs to "the left". Because of her militancy and her personal tale of torture and exile, it makes sense to identify her with the historical leftist movements. But like most of the socialists who make up the ruling coalition party in Chile, Bachelet exhibits almost no apprehension when it comes to welcoming "free market" policies and processes, which are clearly not associated with "the left". James Petras*, this week on Democracy Now, had the following apprehensions about this "left-leaning" Chile:

I don't think they're left-leaning, because -- for many reasons. Lula, for example, has opened the country up to more foreign investment. He’s paid more on foreign debt than any previous, supposedly, conservative president. Certainly Bachelet is not anything leaning to the left. She’s led the arms race, free trade agreements, promoted enormous increases in arms spending. Chile leads per capita arms spending.
I think you have to look at what the business press says, what they're saying in Washington, and when you get pronouncements from Condoleezza Rice and others, saying that Chile is the U.S.'s best ally and we're talking about the U.S. that has been aggressively pursuing bellicose policies, we have to moderate that that perception that is left-leaning. Washington has shown an enormous capacity to tolerate rhetoric, as long as it’s not consequential.

*James Petras is a professor of sociology at Binghamton University in New York and is an anti-imperialist writer and researcher. He's worked intensely with the Landless Peasant Movement in Brazil and has written several books on globalization and the market.

The Free Market and The Left

Neoliberal economic policies are inherently not "leftist" policies no matter how much rhetoric you slap on to them. Free Trade agreements with northern economies, and China, do very little to promote worker’s rights and social justice in general. In fact, quite the opposite is true. As soon as you leave local businesses, workers and farmers exposed to "free" market competition from much more competitive corporations, who besides being able to set up a factory anywhere in the world, are also in a position to harness all the newest destruction technology in the tasks of production, coordination, distribution, public relations,etc, then these local economies, these local and national businesses, along with the livelihoods associated with them, are destroyed.

The big economic groups behind all this foreign investment (all this capital which moves mountains and mobilizes people at will) are just not interested in anything else other than making a profit. Most of the real social issues "the left" represents run counter to the interests these big groups push to institutionalize in their host countries. Policies that promote unregulated export production require ecological nearsightedness, which is a level of blindness that leads to ecological destruction on a mass scale. We're seeing this in Chile right now.

The Left has also been associated, historically, with worker's rights. In Today's Chile, the situation of workers is laughable. We live in a country down here where to say that you have a job is enough to be considered lucky. Nevermind that the job is precarious, that you don't even work for the boss you're working for (Chile has a pathetic sub-contracting system which violates worker's rights and which the governing elites have done nothing about, except as part of a shameful act of campaign coercion in the last week before the presidential election), that your salary doesn't even take you out of poverty, that the type of work you do is so devoid of humanity that you end up becoming a pharmacy junkie who mistreats your wife and kids, that the pension you pay exorbitant amounts of money for each month won’t cover a decent retirement.

Free Trade Agreements Never Discussed

I am embarrassed when the president of Chile, who considers himself a socialist, goes on TV and sings praises about a recently signed free trade agreement (which no one has read and which was never a campaign issue in the recent presidential election) and the main reason he gives is that people will have access to cheaper goods. More than embarrassment, I think it is almost criminal for a president to go on TV and talk down to the Chilean people in that way. Does he think that people don't understand that to open a country up to this sort of economic dumping (based on human rights violations in China, or on artificial subsidies in the United States) spells disaster for local industry, or of what's left of it? Moreover, to have your only argument for virtually imposing, by decree, such an economic situation on people be that now everyone can have access to cheaper shoes and plastic cups! If that is not a media crime, then what is?

Box Stores

It seems that the great vision for Chile, according to the governing economic and political elites, as well as the media establishment (who paint it nice for people to hear and see) is that every Chilean be both a responsible, law-abiding consumer of plastic crap at their local box store AND a hard-working receiver of lousy wages as an employee at the next box store further down the privatized highway.
What is considered "The Left" in Chile is really just a group of ex-idealist, born-again capitalists and self-righteous elites whose vanguard banner reads: "Everything in Chile is for sale!" Just because they're educated in the discourse of economics (at Princeton, at Stanford, at Harvard) and can call this type of pillaging "economic development" or "economic growth",doesn't change the fact that, in the end, they’re nothing more than arrogant sell-outs.

Will Michelle Change Things?

Only time will tell if Bachelet represents a drastic change in the policies of the ruling coalition. I have a feeling, however, that at most she’ll try to extend the breadth of social programs in order to bridge the embarrassing gap between the rich and the poor. This will be a political necessity for her, to say the least, because any international economic crisis could mean the dwindling of popular support which the coalition has enjoyed until now. If this happens, then that's great, and on a practical level we can feel better about this country. But at the level of real and revolutionary change, her four years in office are doomed to become yet another chapter in the "important business" of administering the neoliberal model and spewing discourse after discourse on how we’re slowly getting there. Consequently, the fate of all Chileans will remain in the hands of these economic monsters who are hell-bent on destroying as much of this earth as they can, as quickly as possible.

Ciudad Satelite

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I know this Chilean rock group who call themselves Ciudad Satelite (siuthath sateliteh). Not much is expected when I meet them for a drink on Irarrazaval street in Santiago, the great capital city of Chile, except maybe, and if we're in the right mood, squeezing an interesting conversation out of the lead singer, Tonino (Antonio Baeza), and hearing the acute rebuttals from the drummer "Lion", "Lalo", or Eduardo Leiva. About politics. About Michelle Bachelet, who’s just been elected president of Chile, about Evo Morales, who’s just been elected there, about homeless kids in Mexico and whether or not they choose to be homeless, about music and music videos,etc. This time I’m in for a long night.

I arrive at around nine at this place called Budapest, located next to a Dominos Pizza on Irarrazaval Avenue. Budapest is a micro-brewery which makes an interesting fruity ale. I'm greeted by "Lion" (from now on, just Lalo), who immediately begins to practice his English on me. It's not very good, but he's apparently the only one in the group who tries to speak. It might mean something down the road whether or not these dreaming rockeros speak English intelligibly. Oh, there's also George, who plays the keyboards, and he must be able to speak something since his work as a roadie for an important national rock group (Lucybell) has taken him to Los Angeles, California months at a time. I’ve never heard English out of him, but it must be there; in any case, he's not here tonight, but he'll probably show up down the road, and he might be wearing eyeliner. I ask Lalo if he's really Benicio Del Toro, and it turns out that he is, but a Chilean version, and he continues to explain something that I've already given up trying to understand. He's wearing a camouflaged army cap, very cool.

The bass player is also here, they call him "Pelao", which literally means "bald", and he's been shaving his head for as long as I've known him. Pelao is obsessed with becoming a rock and roll star. He practices his "moves" constantly. He is a blind worshiper of the "cool", whatever that might turn out to be each day. Tonino is wearing a black giligan hat and glasses, he is very small and thin, and he emanates "onda" in a very subtle way, in a very nerdy way. He reminds me of a young version of my uncle who lives in England. He's probably the most relaxed person I've ever met, almost too relaxed, and he has this unchallengeable positivism, which can get very annoying when you need accurate information from him. Whatever you might suggest or propose his response is always positive. There's just one thing that he will never waver on, and that's his belief in rock and roll as a lifestyle. I find out that he is one hundred percent inflexible on this point; people are free to cultivate their soul through music, and there's no blaming society or the market for any fraction of their misery and suffering. He calls me "Mark" even though my name is Anthony.

You don't mean to, but you end up understanding a slice of what young, Chilean dreamers like these really think about their great country and about Latin America in general. My beer arrives and I throw out the first topic. Bachelet. Michelle. What to think of her?

Tonino believes Bachelet represents the left in Chile. He rejoices on what he perceives to be the defeat of the right-wingers. I have to disagree a little. If any group has benefited from the last fifteen years in Chile, it’s the right. I imagine the wealthy, business class relaxing on the beach, motivated little by an election in which both of the candidates are extremely pro-business. Represents. The concertacion, the center-left coalition to which she belongs, has managed to turn its back on a lot of the promises they made to the people of Chile (who voted in 1989 to end the military government of Pinochet). The political establishment, incarnated by the coalition and their "opposition", has successfully managed the economic model imposed by the military government, and has made very few or almost no fundamental changes in the constitution, which was written by Pinochet and his cronies in the eighties. They have accepted the neoliberal model as the model to follow in the economic development of the country, and they have tried to assure the people of Chile that the model is compatible with the social justice they have been promising for years.

At best, the verdict is still out with regards to the Chilean model. We see a lot of progress in terms of human rights, democratic rights, citizens rights, health, the justice system,etc. But we still see a Chile that is dominated by an arrogant economic and cultural elite who enjoy wealth and privileges and who look down on the rest of Chile, on real Chileans who live in the countless poblaciones and communities throughout the country. And they see very little of this material wealth, which is supposed to be so great. The country advances (to where is not clear), but its people don't seem to be going anywhere. They remain hopeful and they still believe that the socialists in power are real socialists and not just a comfortable group of professional politicians enjoying the wealth and privilege associated with governing. But they are beginning to have their doubts, that’s for sure, and the real Left in the country is making a slow and painful recovery.

This is the big question, which I think Bachelet, as president of Chile, has to answer. I think it's wonderful that Chile has a female president now, women are much more sensitive to real human needs and just the sight of so many women mobilized on the streets can only be a positive thing for the country. After all, Women constitute the backbone of Chilean society. But are we finally going to see some of these promises for a more Just Chile materialize? Can the model be "corrected" so that everybody has a more equal chance to benefit from the fruits of a modern society? Can it be done? Or do we need more profound change?

Tonino assumes a moral victory with Bachelet. The right has lost big and we can begin to feel good about things. I'm not that convinced.

The conversation drifts to Bolivia, our neighbors up north. Tomorrow, Evo Morales is sworn in as that country's first indigenous president. History in the making on CNN LIVE! Tomorrow afternoon! What does he promise? We'll have to wait and see.

After paying the bill, we head down Irarrazaval to Plaza Nuñoa where a Cuban festival is winding down. The plaza is packed, the sidewalks full of tables, people drinking, talking, smoking, walking, kissing, playing, selling. We enter a schoperia and we order beer and completos. Completos are hotdogs crowned with a mountain of mayonnaise. A couple of girls (minas) walk in, they're "gringas". Immediately, the reverberations of this simple change of atmosphere are felt at the table. Not much action, but a lot of talk. These must be the horniest guys I've ever met. Every other conversation is about "minas". On television we see the Festival Del Huaso, live from Olmue. I ask Ciudad Satelite about their musical roots. Tonino shakes the question off. He claims that Ciudad is as folkloric as the "huasos" (cowboys) playing cueca (traditional Chilean folk) on television. He's not going to deny influence from Europe or America, but his band is Chilean, and that's that.

The conversation drifts to the video clip for their second single, Dame Tu Love. I'm supposed to be shooting it by now. There's still no money. The record label, apparently, has abandoned Ciudad. Very little has been accomplished since they signed with them in September of last Year, which is also when they were nominated for an MTV Latin America Award for best new band. I learn also that they are currently lacking a manager. It's better not to talk about the subject as it's clearly a sensitive topic. It appears that there's very little support for new music in Chile.

On our way out, Tonino stops to talk to a boy who's been going around asking for money, he's curious about the boy's necklace. He gives him a few coins. And then we're off to their apartment near Salvador Street.

Once at the apartment, the guitar is picked up and Tonino plays a riff he figured out earlier today using my capo. Lalo reminds me that there is a song on the album called Logros they can never play at rehearsal because Tonino has yet to invest in a capo. Apparently, leaving a capo behind at Ciudad Satelite headquarters can change musical history. As expected, George, our Lucybell roadie, arrives on the scene. He's the complete opposite of Tonino in that he tells you the stripped down version of reality. There's no money for the video because if there were, we'd have it by now, and we don't, so we won't. It looks like I'll be spending my own money again.

It is obvious that music plays a central role in their lives. Guitars, drums, amps, keyboards everywhere. After relaxing for a few hours, watching live videos of Nirvana and Bloc Party, listening to Tonino's new songs on the computer, drinking excessive amounts of beer, singing Radiohead in the living room, we head next door to a club called "minga".

A "minga" is a community tradition, famous in Chiloe (south of Chile), where a group of people agree to work together to carry out a specific community project beneficial to all. It is an act of solidarity that is very rare in the city, where sometimes it's difficult to get three people to agree to do anything. Not sure if there's much tradition here or whether some perceived project is being realized, but this club is definitely a sort of underground heat trap which has a cave-feel to it. At the minimum end, it's a good place to meet up with friends, listen to a variety of music, and get very drunk. But if you're lucky, you can meet someone nice who wants to talk and share stories. There's a sweating basement below where, if you're in the right mood, you can swallow whatever music the on-duty DJ is spinning and pretend to dance with dignity. The main floor is complete with beach chairs and rocky walls. This is where Ciudad Satelite hangs out. A night out with them and you'll probably end up here.


The next hour or so consists of hanging around the bar area and acting extremely silly. And then, it's off to eat as (pronounced ASS)! An excursion through the streets of Santiago in search of a place to eat as can be an experience full of unexpected surprises. All of a sudden, you're flanked by three stray dogs who figured out before you did that you were hungry and have volunteered to be your escorts to the nearest as place. If on your way, you decide to ask a not so innocent question to a couple of white-haired middle-aged men on the street, expect to be caught up in a fiery debate on the future of the country. Tonino and I are still discussing politics. Now it's Bachelet/Allende. What would Allende think of the concertacion's Chile? Tonino assures me that Allende would be proud to hear Bachelet quoting almost directly from his last address to the world in her acceptance speech this last week. I decide to open the debate to include these two worldly night owls standing on the corner of Irarrasaval and Vikuňa Mackenna. Tonino finds himself in a face to face battle of words with a slightly slurry allendista. Tonino is scolded by our "eterno luchador social", he calls him a fascist, the worst scum of the earth, incapable of anything good. Tonino, to say the least, is touched by the man's conviction. What did he say that was so bad? Needless to say, Tonino's chaos theory of society isn't going over too well with our weary and defeated leftist, but Tonino understands and accepts the criticism before it turns bloody. I remind our new friends that this kind of communication between generations can only be positive. People have to learn to talk to each other again, imagine! To come up to someone on the street and to ask them what they think Allende would say if he were alive today, it's not such a crazy idea, it's a good question and you know it's going to spark debate, right there on the street. Talk to each other!

Once you get to the as place, the most difficult part has begun. An as is a hotdog, but with steak instead of sausage. It also comes with about six pounds of mushed avocado ("palta") splashed on top with an arrogant stroke of gravitational defiance. This extremely top heavy food mountain, as well as the full responsibility associated with eating it, is then placed in your hands. It is important to note that negotiating the as is an artform that only a few have mastered, only the very best can eat an as with dignity. It is culturally accepted that more than fifty perecent of the as will end up on the street or on your upper arm. On this occassion, my negotiating skills were trumped by Tonino's irresponsible attempt at eating half my as, undermining in this way the very structure of my bun and making it impossible to continue. Our escorts were very well compensated for their work. Huge globs of "palta", mayonese, and soggy bunfood stretched out like a banquet on the sidewalks of Vikuňa Mackenna.