I am not sure you all actually disagree. Nixon et al almost certainly thought that the policies of Allende in Chile, Goulart in Brazil, Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadeq in Iran, and other targets of US overthrow plots, were bad and would lead to bad things. The US would oppose such policies as (our leaders believe) destructive and harmful if advocated here, so there is no reason to think that they think they would be good if practiced abroad.
At the same time, they do fear that these policies might be popular and atractive to misguided people who don't know what is good for them. So it is quite consistent to say that the US fears a "good example" -- the attraction of populist, nationalist, socialist, whatever policies -- without thinking that these policies are actually good.
I don't think that Chomsky thinks that Nixon and Kissinger thought taht socialism was good in Chile ans had to be stopped for that reason. The "good example" language is ironic. Isn't this obvious? jks
--- Luke Weiger <lweiger at umich.edu> wrote:
> Ian wrote:
>
> > Well, then, you need to explicate -and be prepared
> to defend- the
> > normative baseline you're using that enables you
> to claim that their views
> > are skewed.
>
> I'm not using any "normative baseline" that would be
> controversial outside
> of an epistemology course. I'm simply claiming that
> Dawson et al. are
> attributing motives to their opponents that never
> existed.
>
> Michael Dawson wrote:
>
> > We're not talking about the Cold War. We're
> talking about U.S. foreign
> policy stretching over 228 years.
>
> I don't care if Chomsky et al. think the pattern
> extends back to the
> beginning of time--we were discussing particular
> examples from the Cold War
> era.
>
> > Meanwhile, why, in your addled mind, did the
> United States overthrow
> Allende? Nixon and Kissinger knew he was not > a
> Soviet agent. They
> worried that his model of development would work,
> and would be "insidious."
>
> I already gave the short version of the explanation:
>
> "Because instituting socialism would've been
> disastrous in the short term
> for their cronies in the copper industry etc., and
> because they feared that
> Allende's government would aid Latin American
> revolutionaries."
>
> I see no need to elaborate. Even a bad regime can
> help out other bad
> regimes--that should be something everyone across
> the political spectrum can
> agree on. But maybe you're exceptional.
>
> > They worried that his model of development would
> work, and would be
> "insidious."
>
> Saying it over and over again doesn't make it so.
>
> By the way, I was mighty tempted to return your
> insults, but thought better
> of it. I'd suggest you do likewise.
>
> -- Luke
>
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