Actually, when a general says we "have our own reality", well, maybe it's not just pomo constructivism. Through monoploy on use of coercive force, a heavy role in state industry, and the backing of Washington, they *could* lift fingers and move mountains. In the upper echelons is must one a sense of actually being able to "have your own reality". (This is well explored in Garcia Marquez's Autumn of the Patriach. And remember the Salvadoran dictator of the 1930s who put yellow cellophane over the public lighting system to stop the spread of disease; etc.)
Hello! Today is decision-day in London. Folks: one (just one) of this century's Hitler's will either "get his" or get a plane ride home. Either way, I say this is a victory we should celebrate. For some weeks, the Pinochet was reduced to a fuming, pitiful figure, now publicly reviled the world over.
Can you imagine?!
Tom
>A general offering a pomo justification for military dictatorship. And
>historical relativism too!! This is a new one for me!
>
> Jim Farmelant
>>From today's paper in Cochabamba, Bolivia:
>>
>> La Paz (Los Tiempos).- The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces
>>[of
>>Bolivia], general Carlos Béjar, said yesterday that members of the
>>military
>>"have their own reality" and with that argument he declared himself in
>>oppostion to re-opening investigations on the dictatorships of the
>>'70s and
>>'80s.
>> [...]
>> "Look, this [the dictatorships] is a natural concequence of our
>>country's history and we can't judge what happened 20 years ago,
>>because at
>>that time conditions were different from today," he noted.
>>
>>Well, glad we put that to rest.
>>
>>Tom