Day in the Sun

they had their moment
their day in the sun
paraded their heroes
in marches & processions
the great joy of liberation
freedom fighters won their war
the ANC had released their country
from the chains of apartheid
from white-man’s sub-human segregation

their dreams of land, of freedom
of justice and equality
their cherished 'Freedom Charter'
fought for and hard won -
were still but a dream

they won their war
but didn’t know it yet
they'd lost the economy
to Milton Friedman
& his Chicago Boys
the gangster-Capitalist
money-men in suits
got there first
before the revolutionaries got back
(while they were still fighting their war for freedom)

so that by the time the war was over
by the time the battle-bruised freedom-fighters
had returned home to become politicians
to give the country back to their people
their dreams had vanished

it took some time for the shock
to be absorbed
that there never was to be
the promised land re-distribution
there never was to be clean water for all
never good housing, electricity for all
there would never be
new schools, hospitals for all

their dreams were lost in paper reams
lost in the depths of the World Bank, the IMF
and above all, Chicago School Economists
American institutions all
designed to never let the poor prosper
designed always for corporate rule

the gorillas in suits - the Chicago Boys -
had arrived previously
(it had become obvious to them
- the economists - that the ANC
would win their war eventually)

so that by the time
the heroes all came home
all that was left
was the ‘glory - of winning the fight’
they’d been ‘cleaned out’

Friedman’s boys had got there first
‘stitched up’ the economy
the ‘technicalities’, the 'paper work'
the morgages, the land grabs
the white apartheid
political money-men all got there first
and South Africa
so like so many other countries gone before
had been well and truly ‘done over’
by brutal Capitalism

Nelson Mandela got his freedom
won his war
but there was no country
to give back to his people

he acquiesced to the big-money-boys
trusted they knew more than he
to run the economy
was he forced ? did he trust too much ?
how could he have known
US corporations would wipe his country
of all it's national assets ?

he learned the hard way
the ‘economy’ comes first
'little' people come last
until we know this
until we understand
nothing will ever change

Pamela Sidney 2008

Friedman's Dream

Milton Friedman used human beings
as experiments for his pet ideology –
free-market global Capitalism
he never let it never enter his head
could he not imagine
the repercussions
on an individual
of his brutal doctrine

capable only of thinking
of a country's citizens
numbering in their millions
a 'detached mass'
he experimented
in a cold inhuman way

in the past we gave the name Nazi
to a person who manipulated
millions to their ultimate deaths
how can this man
be thought any different

Hitler gassed not one individual personally
Friedman shot not one person in the head
but Friedman
via Chile’s military & General Pinochet
put President Allende down

Friedman's agents:
CIA, Henry Kissinger, the Chicago Boys
Chile’s Catholic University
all enthusiastic carriers
of his ideology

Friedman was a monster
of epic proportion
examination of his dialogues
with Pinochet bear this out

the CIA provided torture techniques
for the military to 'practice'
on the citizens of Chile’
Brazil, Argentina & more…

tens of thousands were brutally murdered
on the imposition of Friedman's doctrine
with the full knowledge and approval
of Friedman, his Chicago Boys
his professors, his economists

in Chile’
Friedman had a perfectly functioning
public school system privatised
(Socialist – therefore evil)
replaced them
with private 'Charter Schools'
'vouchers' for the poor
health care was privatised 'pay-as-you-go'
kindergartens & cemeteries privatised
social security downgraded
to a punitive private system

with millions unemployed
many on the brink of starvation
thousands of dissenters
were tortured and put to death

Friedman had the gall to call this
the ‘Chilean Economic Miracle’
he used key words & spin to cover
most cruel human experimentation

the whole travesty was achieved by alliance
between: police state, military & US corporations
they waged full scale war on the workers

Friedman’s ‘Economic Miracle’
has today produced for Chile'
one of the most unequal societies in the world
out of 123 countries Chile’ ranks 116

so much for the 'miracles'
of free-market global Capitalism

Friedman loathed the ‘middle-class’
his aim ?
all wealth must rise
to just a handful of 'elites' at the top
with masses of poor, slave-waged
peasants at the bottom

before Friedman decimated
the countries below
they had been showcases
of Developmentalism democracy
Argentina, Chile’, Uraquay, Brazil

all were reduced to basket-cases
by Friedman’s economic doctrine
with 'generous' help
from the CIA, US military
(tips on how to organise a coup)

the result?
the cold-blooded murder
of a democratically elected
much loved president)

Chile’s Catholic University
to its eternal shame, collaborated
provided safe-haven
to professors, economists, graduates
from Chicago's School of Economics
while they 'got on with business'
enforcing the shameful ideology
one must ask -

where was Henry Kissinger ?

what Friedman’s insane
inhuman doctrine has done
is to rape these countries
is to decimate the lives
of countless thousands of poor people
is to reduce the middle-class sectors
to often worse than 3rd world status
while at the same time
enormous, obscene, untold wealth
ever flows upwards to the 'elites' -
to government, military, corporation

the three planks of Friedman's doctrine -
‘free-market capitalism’ are:

1. privatise all publically owned institutions

(public property theft)

2. de-regulation of government

(outsourcing of government business to private corporations - see Halliburton & Blackwater for privatising war)

3. deep cuts in social welfare

(meaning society's most vulnerable are 'cut loose'

to suffer fade away & eventually die)

all this is 'code' for 'small government'
a very admired American concept
meaning – a government should
take no responsibility for anything

if you think about it, these three planks
are a most blatant, outrageous attack
on the human rights of all the citizens
of so called 'democratic' countries

when will the sleeping ones wake ?

Pamela Sidney 2008